


At the Brink of Midnight

by ForDarkIsTheSuede (TheBadgeringWitness)



Series: Batman the Telltale Series:  The Perseverance Project [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Action/Adventure, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alfred is on vacation, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bat-Retirement End, Batjokes, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Ableism, Canon-Typical Violence, Complete, Gay Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Juce, M/M, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Non-con Drug Use, Original Character(s), Pining Without Even Knowing Your Pining, Romance, Season 3 replacement, Slow Burn, Tiffany is basically Oracle, True Friends End, confessions of feelings, hope you're thirsty for some JUCE, i have a lot of feelings and they had to go somewhere, now fully edited and ready for download!, vigilante!Joker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-04-27 19:47:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 110,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14432820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBadgeringWitness/pseuds/ForDarkIsTheSuede
Summary: When Bruce receives a distressing call from the institutionalized John Doe, the billionaire-philanthropist is thrust back into the darker side of Arkham Asylum, where his strive for the facility's improvements are null when faced with a new threat from the inside. Bruce swore off Batman after seeing what it did to those he loved - will he have to put the cowl back on to save the day? Or can he do it as Bruce Wayne?





	1. Prologue

[You have:  (ONE) new message. First message: ]

 

_Bruce! Buddy! Uh, it's me, John. I-I know you're busy - it's why you haven't come to see me in the past two weeks, probably._

_Look, it's-it's okay, Bruce. I get it. It’s water under the bridge…okay? It has to be, because I... I need your **help** , Bruce. _

_Please... I need you to trust me on this._

**_BAM._ **

_I don't have to time to explain-_

_"Damn it, ram the door!"_

_Dang it - Crane, Bruce, Jonathan Crane! I thought it was just the meds they put me on at first, but -_

**_CRASH_ ** _._

_Gotta go._

 

[End of message. There are no more messages.]


	2. The Sign Forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Important Spoiler Tag: use of slur - f*g (mentioned)

Bruce pulled the phone away from his ear, barely feeling the weight in his palm. The people walking down the hall - past him, towards him, down the corner - seemed to be moving at a snail's pace. There should be sound, from the footsteps on the tile and voices and doors swinging open somewhere, but it was like there was nothing at all in the world but Bruce's breathing and the whispering echo of John's voice in his ear, so close and yet so far away.

The transformation of John's voice from nervous to hurt to rushed and desperate chilled him in the same manner Bruce might discover a body floating in the Gotham River.

His phone buzzed, a reminder for the meeting he had in ten minutes sitting above the display for his voicemail, and sound came rushing back all at once.

The message had lasted thirty seconds, from an unsaved number that Bruce had a feeling registered to the old landline in the hallway of John's floor at Arkham. The echo of the bangs and crashes were probably from the orderlies trying to open the hallway door, which miraculously had gotten stuck - John probably locked it, probably caused a _distraction_ in another room to get their attention for the precious seconds he had to dial and pass the message along, tell him to come help...

Bruce felt heat burn his stomach. He should have picked up when it rang, damn the fact that he'd been in the lavatory and damn the way it looked so like the auto-dialing spam he'd been getting for the past few months. He could have picked it up on the second ring, saved Joker some time -

No. Not Joker. _John_. John.

Joker was the _vigilante_ , the persona hung up for good like the bat-cowl of the person he was modeled after.

Bruce felt a light pang in his side where the latest scar sat, a twinge that seemed to come and go at odd intervals. There he was, thinking about John like they were still working together in the cover of that warm night several months ago, where things had gone from good to bad to absolutely terrible, where Bruce had decided that the crusade had to stop. Their partnership had been like a dream, too fast and too short, a taste of something that, with time, could've been wondrous.

It was nothing more than a dream of a dream, now. Batman was retired, Joker with him, and now the both of them were trying desperately to get back to a normal life. John's would just take longer. A lot longer.

The air in the hall seemed stifling all of the sudden. Bruce walked as quickly as he could to his office, tempted to break into a run.

The office was cool and bright, but even as he shut the door behind him and let the air conditioning wash over him, the guilt and anger and worry that bubbled under his skin didn't fade. His eyes automatically went to the chessboard - one moved piece and he could just fire up Lucius' old computer, slip right back into the old ways and try and get one of Tiffany's drones over the asylum as he dug into Arkham's files...

Bruce shook his head.

John needed his help. It just couldn't be _Batman_ that helped him. Bruce was an ordinary civilian now - well, a civilian with more money than was sensible and an unusual drive to fix the city's problems in any way he could, but a civilian nonetheless. He could still look into Arkham, into this Johnathan Crane, before things escalated out of hand.

Bruce tried to concentrate on his breathing. John was intelligent and surprisingly strong; even if he was put into isolation as punishment, John would be alright. He hadn't been hurting himself or causing trouble for a couple of months, anyhow...

Bruce paused, staring at the vent on the ceiling. He had tried to see John every Wednesday at the very least, but two weeks ago he was told that John didn't want any visitors, and Bruce had regretfully let it slide, thinking that their argument a few days prior still weighed on his mind. (It wasn’t improbable, what with his tendency to hold grudges, but it _had_ seemed strange.) Last week John had twice been put under observation for some kind of medical testing, and thus was not allowed to be seen under any circumstances, despite the drastically different times Bruce had shown up.

Each time, though, Bruce was under the impression that John would at least be _told_ about his attempted visits. The young doctor-in-training from last time had given him a sympathetic smile and said as much herself, along with a clumsy attempt at flirtation Bruce had played along with for his image's sake.

The thought that John had been left hurt worse than before because of a misunderstanding like that didn't sit well with Bruce. It made him feel like he’d been hit with a burning punch.

His phone buzzed at him, and Bruce glanced down at the calendar notification with annoyance. It was tempting to blow the meeting off, just make up some excuse and head home so he could start digging as much as his civilian identity would allow, maybe make a phone call to Arkham and see if he could get a word out to John under the guise of looking into the progress on the asylum's improvements he was sponsoring.

He breathed deeply, going back into the hall and telling himself that John would be alright for a little while longer - Wayne Enterprises came first in the day, regardless of whether or not a cowl was involved.

Bruce apologized for his tardiness and sat at the too-long table with the rest of the board, his phone practically burning a hole in his pocket as he tried desperately not to think about flipping the table and running out the door like he was giving chase in amongst the humid smog of Gotham's nights.

*~*~*~*~*

As per John's voicemail (which Bruce thought he must have listened to half a dozen times), any spare moment Bruce had at Wayne Tower was spent looking up Jonathan Crane. There was no telling who was trying to keep tabs on his phone, so he resorted to double-hopping on his VPN in a private window.

There were a few Jonathan Cranes in the state, spelling considerations included, but only two stood out - one was several cities away, working as the head of a generic-replacement pharmaceutical company, and the other was working right in Gotham, a former professor of psychology at Gotham University who was added on to the Arkham payroll not long after the incident with Lady Arkham.

While the pharmacist had several photos on the company website and a seemingly normal (if seldom used) FriendBook page and several mentions on the company's Chirper, Professor Crane had no social media accounts whatsoever and only two photos, one of which was a tiny faculty photo obviously used on his university I.D. However, he did have several published articles in psychology journals, the last three dealing with the subjects of treating fear and anxiety and how it manifested, the last two of which had rebuttal articles from other doctors listed. 

At least some of his courses were listed on RateTheProf, and while many of the higher-rating students listed him as incredibly knowledgeable, they and the lower-rating students warned about his seemingly abrasive personality from over the years:

> (*) queenofdiamonds
> 
> creepy know-it-all fag kept giving me ds and didn't allow me to do the extra credit!! he likes ds so much??? he can eat my DICK!!!!
> 
> (***) vintage-or-die
> 
> I swear his office hours are ridiculously tight. Make sure to arrive to class on time and take REALLY good notes - I missed a day I regretted it ever since, he gets the point across so well that the only way you can really copy it down for yourself is to hear it firsthand... Seriously, record the lectures if you suck at writing, it'll save your life.
> 
> (*) BigD@ddyy
> 
> Fucker put down my final paper so hard i think it broke my ribs. He thinks he knows everything, he doesn't take two words against anything he talks about. I don't know why GU keeps his emotionless scrawny ass.
> 
> (****) itty bitty pumpkin pie
> 
> Great teacher, but not very personable; he doesn't talk much out of lectures. Make sure to ask before using your phone to record lectures, he'll kick you out if you don't. Also I SWEAR he uses a cell blocker, I can't get any tower or wifi signal in his classes even if we change rooms...
> 
> (****) dank memes only
> 
> He kicked me out for taking a picture of him once. He's lucky he's such a smart silver fox or I might have quit right there. Learned loads tho.
> 
> (*****) dr. psychosubb
> 
> Amazing. He gave me a C on my final but his comments on it were so good I can't be mad, I learned so much!! Also if you like hot stern daddys that's a big plus. Hard to hate a face like that!!
> 
> (*****) the-night-falls-hard
> 
> Seriously the best teacher I ever had. Pay attention and you'll feel like you could take on anything.

Bruce breathed through his nostrils. Professor Crane was critical, solitary, and stubborn, but he clearly left an impression on those who he came into contact with.

While there wasn't many mentions of the professor in news, he managed to find a letter to the editor in the last psychology journal that Professor Crane contributed an article to, aimed at the rebuttal to his last paper - and Bruce figured by the language that it was Crane lashing back:

> My Dear Editors,
> 
> I'm surprised that such an acclaimed journal of psychology would sink so low as to publish the distasteful words of the so-called Dr. Strange. His work - if you can even call it that - is pure fantastical speculation when it is organized enough to be decipherable. Not only does he genuinely believe in the concept of telepathy, but he is under the childish delusion that he can devise a way to see thoughts put into visual form as if it were something to be filmed. Tell me:  do you think someone with such an obvious deficiency of realistic thought could provide any kind of counter-argument to any sane research? I don't believe he's sound enough to comment correctly on the weather.
> 
> If you continue on with publishing the work of people who earned their doctorates by shelling out thousands of dollars to a fly-by-night online institution, you will lose more than just subscribers with half a brain more than you.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> A Competent Doctor

Bruce read over the last paragraph twice:  it could be read as either a warning or a legitimate threat, and it was impossible to tell which one it was without even knowing what it was that John suspected Crane of doing. But considering the rebuttal in question was published over a year ago and the editor at the time was still in alive and in charge, at least Bruce could say that Crane didn't have _that_ murder in mind. Dr. Strange, however, had no other work published since, either in _Psychology Now_ or any other reputable magazine.

Naturally, he could find nothing on the current work of the former-Professor Crane in Arkham. That would require a hack of the asylum's systems, and even though Bruce knew Tiffany would be up to the task, he decided against it. He knew it would tempt him to go back to his old habits, and that was strictly a no-go.

He'd have to pay Arkham a visit, see what he could figure out from the inside - and hopefully, talk to John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite this story still being in progress, I chose to start uploading these today, because today is Joker's Birthday! (AKA the anniversary of his first appearance!) Happy 78th Birthday to the comic world's most insidious bastard! ◦°˚\\(*❛‿❛)/˚°◦
> 
> I'll try to upload once a week since I have so much done already, but with two other writing projects to juggle along with a job-hunt, I hope you understand if the updates start to be slow. This story won't be as nearly as long as my HP fic (a 2+ year old monster of a story still going), and I already have the bulk of it planned, so you don't have to worry about it being left unfinished. OH, if you spot any errors, please point them out! See ya soon... |ω・）


	3. The Lines In-Between

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I had some issues with Arkham's layout, plus some technical issues... Next time I'll update in the morning for you guys! ( ToT)
> 
> Important Spoiler Tags: canon-typical ableism

Bruce had gotten used to driving up to Arkham’s squeaky iron gates and waiting patiently for his visitor call to go through the recently-upgraded intercom, but he had to admit it still felt strange to look at the place up close. It was tall and dark, with the spires and slanted roofs reminiscent of some kind of gothic mansion rather than a mental hospital. Many of the older buildings in Gotham seemed like it, with their gargoyles and weather-worn stonework, always giving the rest of the city the sort of grim storybook atmosphere despite the varying designs of the skyscrapers and apartments and storefronts.

Bruce knew he should have been used to seeing it, considering he had been visiting it multiple times a week for almost seven months, but somehow it always felt like he was going to a different plane of existence. It was a very different world inside, after all…

Like Gotham’s architecture, the cars in the lot behind the building varied in their states of wear and style and year, but somehow it all looked right, even with Bruce’s black Maserati Gran Turismo parked in the corner. He passed by a beaten Saab with what looked like several bullet holes in the passenger door and a plastic bag covering the window and felt guilt start to gnaw at him.

Crime rates had gone up since he hung up the cowl.

He _knew_ one man couldn’t save the city. He knew the GCPD were better equipped, and knew that Gordon’s recent reinstatement as Commissioner was helping, albeit slowly.

It didn’t stop him second-guessing himself.

Bruce had to walk around to the front of the building to get to the entrance; what was once dull and – quite frankly – _creepy_ was now more polished and bright. The electrical system had been difficult to upgrade, but the result had been worth it. The asylum was looking more like a proper institution every week.

The receptionist was talking with a young red-headed woman in a white lab coat. Bruce took a second to recognize her – the young doctor-in-training from last time he’d tried to visit John. She’d apparently decided to cut half of her hair off in the meantime, leaving it in a short bob.

“Good evening, Mr. Wayne. I.D. and signature please,” the receptionist said mid-sentence into her conversation with the trainee, sliding the clipboard towards Bruce, “-so I said, ‘Honey, you know I’ve seen crazier things at work!’”

The trainee gave a short laugh; it sounded like one of those polite ones that always seemed to signify the end of particular conversations at parties. “Oh, I bet he shut up after that…”

“He did, he did,” Deborah Flint replied, flashing a smile up at Bruce as she glanced over his I.D. “You’re just here to see Dr. Thompson today, Mr. Wayne?”

“I think I can wrap the meeting up with him before visiting hours are over – I’d like to see John afterwards, if that’s alright.” Bruce didn’t miss the appreciative once-over the trainee next to him was giving him, but decided to ignore it.

 “I’ll have to check over the patient notes I got this afternoon to see if that’s clear.” Mrs. Flint squinted at her monitor. “That’s strange, Dr. Thompson’s schedule says he should be finishing up with a therapy session upstairs in a bit… Miss Lant, can you escort Mr. Wayne there?”

The trainee flashed him professional smile. “Of course. Follow me, please, Mr. Wayne.”

“Thank you, Miss Lant.”

“You can call me Jackie if you’d like,” she replied cheerfully. “Everyone does. Just, uh, not in front of other doctors.”

Bruce smiled back as they went through the security check. The guard (Tom Welker, who often worked the evening shifts) watched Bruce’s belt and shoes pass through monitor with a scrutiny, but barely ran the metal-detecting rod over him and Jackie. Bruce had half a mind to tell him to check better, but Bruce had passed through it clean so many times before that he wasn’t surprised the guard was getting relaxed with him. And if he did check him better, he might confiscate some of the harmless contraband Bruce sometimes brought to John. Getting a milkshake in had been hard enough…

“Clean as ever, Mr. Wayne. Hey, Jackie, you’re missing something.”

Jackie immediately tapped her badge, then started going through her pockets, patting her slacks as well. “What could I be…?”

“My number,” Tom grinned, handing her a slip of paper. “I’m free Sunday, if you wanna have dinner.”

Jackie took it, but gave Tom a very unimpressed look as she slid it into her coat pocket. “I’ll think about it.”

“I know a place that does great thai!” He called after her.

“I met you last time I visited, didn’t I? You look different,” Bruce commented as they stepped into the elevator. “Did you get your hair done?”

Jackie blushed slightly. “Oh, um, yes, you did. And yes, I did – I had to have an emergency haircut yesterday. I stood too close to one of the inmates doors,” she said with a disappointed frown. “I don’t even know where he got the knife from, but he cut off my whole ponytail…”

Bruce raised his brows. “I’m sorry to hear that… At least you make it look good,” he placated with a small smile.

She flashed him a slight grin as her cheeks turned a little pinker. “Thanks.”

The elevator stopped, letting on two orderlies who merely nodded at Bruce’s polite smile. One looked at the ‘5’ lit up and turned to Jackie – “Jackie, they're fixing the fifth floor’s elevator doors. You’ll have to take the stairs up there.”

“What?! Ugh…” Jackie sighed, pressing the fourth-floor’s button. “Sorry about this, Mr. Wayne.”

“It’s alright,” he said with a slight shrug. “At least it’s just a problem with the doors.”

The fourth floor was better than it had been the first time Bruce had been on it. The tile hadn’t been fixed yet, but the lighting was much better, and things just seemed clearer and cleaner. A security camera’s lens gleamed from the wall, brand new and not yet operational. The old camera down the hall could barely see them as they made their way towards the staircase. The stairwell was always cast in a yellowish sort of light in comparison to the clean white florescent bulbs in the hallway. Emergency lights hanging high on the walls made Bruce feel like he was in more of a prison than anything. 

“Okay, patient 904’s room should be down there, so Dr. Thompson should be near there…” Jackie looked over her clipboard’s notes, eyes roaming over some kind of floor map as they walked up the stairs. “I swear, this place has the most ridiculous layout…”

Bruce said nothing. He honestly hoped they’d pass John’s room up there. He almost didn’t care if it was even occupied… Somehow, just the idea of seeing his space was oddly reassuring.

The heavy metal door opened to the slightly grayer hallway of the fifth floor. The red light above the open doors leading to the rec room area was blaring at him. How strange…

Then again, so was the fact that Dr. Thompson’s schedule had him with a patient at the time that Bruce was supposed to be meeting him. So was the real reason Bruce had picked now to check up on the place. Sizing up Crane in person and addressing John's concerns came first.

"Bruce?"

One simple word in the voice that Bruce knew he would never forget in a hundred years, and things suddenly seemed a little brighter in the dismal world of Arkham.

Bruce practically snapped his head towards the sound, and found John moving to lean against the bars of the Rec Room, a glowing look on his face like he had glimpsed something more than just a man. Like their argument two weeks ago was just water under the bridge. Bruce was drawn in, even as the trainee blubbered.

"Uh, Mr. Wayne, you -"

"I'm sorry, Jackie, can you... I dunno, give me a minute? I didn't get to see him last time I visited."

The trainee seemed to scan him, her dark brown eyes searching his face for a moment. She sighed, a sympathetic smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Two minutes," she said with a light kind of finality.

"Thank you," Bruce said as she walked to the corner and leaned against it, her back turned to them as she flipped through the notes on her clipboard.

"Still using that old Wayne charm, huh?" John smiled, his eyes gleaming for a moment before turning softer, his voice quiet. "Good to see you again, Bruce."

The orderly sitting behind the nurse’s station wasn't paying attention in the slightest.

"John," Bruce started, keeping his voice low, wondering exactly what he should say, "How did you...?"

John's smile widened as he gave a small excited chortle. "Don't worry, Bruce, I didn't do anything _extreme_ ," he emphasized with a look. "Swiped a few keys, locked the guards behind me, dialed the numbers I've had memorized for ages... And it worked! Here you are, in the flesh!" His hands, which had been grasping the bars like he could somehow pull them apart, raised palm-up at him, as if he was showing Bruce off like a prize. Bruce couldn't help but glance at them as they went back to holding the bars. "Can't say I didn't wish I had a Jokerang or two on me that day, but -"

" _John_ -"

"I know, I know," John huffed with a frown, his thin arms sliding through the gaps to rest an elbow on the flat lock of the frame and putting the other hand on the very edge of the flat bar. They were close - it would be easy, really, for John to grasp his collar to pull him forward. Into what, Bruce wasn't sure. "Still," he said with a shrug and a sigh, his vibrant green eyes going back to stare into Bruce with something too soft and too knowing to make Bruce entirely comfortable.

"John, I tried to visit," Bruce began, feeling like all he wanted was to spill everything out at once. That he was sorry, that he kept coming at the wrong times for two weeks, that of course he would be there, that he’d _always_ have John’s back -

John reached up, swiftly and softly, to put his finger to Bruce's lips. The skin was dry, but warm, and Bruce felt an awful urge to lean into it. "Shh. You're here now, and that's all that matters." There was no room for dishonesty there; John really _meant_ that. The hand lowered slowly, the tip of it just brushing against Bruce's chin until it pulled away entirely, the residual heat burning his skin in the stifling air. "Just do me a favor, okay?"

There was something about the image of John leaning against the thing that separated their worlds only just, of hands reaching out to him through the gap in the bars, blurring the line that divided them, while John gave him that begging, vulnerable look so like the night the dream ended that it sent a jolt through Bruce’s heart. They might as well have been back in the control room.

"Don't ignore it. Don't shove the feeling in your gut aside and pretend it's not _there_ , Bruce. I saw it written on your face the moment you rounded the corner." Bruce's heart thudded in his ears, the arms in his muscles tightening, his eyes wider than what he wanted them to be.

Bruce wasn’t sure what gut-feeling he was alluding to – did he mean the unusually strong attachment for him that throbbed and squirmed in a way that made Bruce feel uncomfortable putting a label to it, or did he mean the Bat still lurking beneath the surface, wanting to run, wanting to let everything out, scrambling to put all the pieces together before it was too late? Both things were the reason he stood there. He feared neither would fade away any time soon.

“Good thing I felt like pacing over here,” John ( _Joker_ ) added with a painfully gentle grin, “or I would’ve missed you.”

He didn’t know what to say. He almost wanted to tell him how much _he_ missed _him_. He could almost make a joke out of it.

"Mr. Wayne?"

The spell on Bruce snapped like a trodden-upon twig and he turned to see the trainee a few feet away, an eyebrow raised slightly at him.

"Hey, Jackie," John greeted with a little wave of his hand, a more casual smile playing on his face. "Showing our favorite billionaire the corners they allow you in?"

"John," Jackie replied cautiously, "you know I'm not even supposed to talk to you without supervision."

"I think Bruce counts," John said with a sly smile at him. Bruce felt the corner of his mouth twitch up on one side and hurried to keep it down.

"Mister Wayne," Jackie said with a more determined air, "Follow me, please."

"Thanks for stopping by, buddy," John said, his smooth mouth curved into a secretive smile. "Do me a favor and look up _art_ for me, okay, pal? Walls are a little too bare here."

Bruce's mind raced as he fought to keep a straight face. Art - not artwork, but a name, short for Arthur. There were no _Arthurs_ on the list of doctors, so he had to have been a patient or a guard. The smile tugging on Bruce's lips didn't have to be fought down this time. "I'll pick out something good for you."

"I know you will," John added with a knowing grin, withdrawing his arms entirely and stepping back from the bars. "Come back soon," he added with an affectionate tone and a much softer smile.

Bruce began to follow Jackie down the hall, glancing back just once to see bright green eyes still watching him, the smile on John’s face replaced with something that was anxious and contemplative at the same time. It made Bruce want to turn around, to ask what precisely it was that made John so desperate to risk the call in the first place, to tell him that he wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

Instead, he tore his gaze away and refocused on the task at hand:  finding out what exactly Arkham had used the funds he'd so generously given them for, and seeing if he could get a better grasp of this Dr. Crane.

Jackie tapped a plastic pen in the air as they passed by mostly-empty patient rooms; they came to a stop in front of an open one, the _904_ card in the room plate. “Wait…” The trainee took another glance at the paper on her clipboard, and then back at the room. “Damn it. I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne.” She turned, giving a sigh and a look reminiscent of a lost puppy. “He must be back down in his office. I think we got the old schedule… I should’ve known he wouldn’t be up here if you’d made an appointment so close to a therapy session…”

It was true, but Bruce wasn’t going to complain. At least he got to see John for the first time in weeks, and since he was up and around, that meant he could visit properly later.

“As long as you know where his office is, I’m sure he won’t mind if I’m a little late.”

“…thanks.” Jackie shot a look down at her shoes. “It’d probably be faster to take the stairs the whole way.”

“That’d be fine.”

He followed Jackie down the aging concrete steps, noticing that she was looking a lot more contemplative than before. “I’m really sorry for dragging you all this way."

Bruce eyed the trainee carefully. She did seem frustrated at herself. “I imagine there’s always going to be hiccups in a place like this. Hospitals always have emergencies; I don’t doubt this place has its fair share of those, too.”

“I just wish they’d update this stuff so I wouldn’t feel left out of the loop like this. I guess most of that’s budgeting and priority, though, isn’t it…?” Jackie sighed slightly as they passed a security guard who gave a curt nod to Bruce’s civil smile. “At least his new office is easy to find. It’s right past the research bay – you ever see it?”

The heavy metal door marked _2 – WEST_ squealed as she opened it for him, holding it so he could pass.

“I…haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Oh, well, I’ll show you! We do medical tests there – it’s perfectly safe,” she added at Bruce’s wince, letting the door close by itself, “The patients are prescreened for the new medicines, and the bay only acts as an extra measure in case something goes wrong. The upgrades have really helped.” Jackie shot him a warm smile.

“Good to know.”

They passed an orderly escorting a patient alongside a doctor, but other than that the hall seemed empty and quiet until they turned the corner.

Five rooms, side-by-side, all had large glass windows showing in. Three of them were dark, but showed beds and monitoring equipment, like makeshift hospital rooms. One of them had the blinds drawn.

The last was lit bright, and a thin, tall man in a lab coat was seeming to look inside, tapping a pen against his mouth.

"Oh, Dr. Crane! I didn't expect to see you here today."

The stick of a man turned towards Jackie, the light reflecting off one of the lenses in his half-rimmed glasses as a hazel eye looked out at them through the other. It was a blank look that spoke nothing of the man's intensions - it was startlingly dull and lifeless for a forty-two-year-old man whose face looked like it could've been on the cover of GQ. For a horrible moment, Bruce wondered if the man was actually _alive_.

"Just finishing up some observations," Dr. Crane said simply, his high voice steady and relaxed. His eyes flickered down at the paper visitor’s badge sticking to Bruce's breast pocket. "I see you’re escorting Mr. Wayne around the premises."

"Oh, I was just leading him to the boss' office - I just thought I'd show him around a bit on the way. You know, showing him a bit of what all his donations have done for us so far," Jackie said, a nervous kind of excitement in her voice. "He never got to see down here before."

Dr. Crane stared him down, bits of curiosity breaking his blank expression. "I was under the impression that Mr. Wayne was a regular visitor to our humble asylum."

"I've only been allowed in a few areas," Bruce began, flashing his charming-host-smile at the doctor. "And I've been escorted every time; this place is like a maze."

"Even as your time as a patient?" Dr. Crane asked, curiosity growing steady in his pitch and sparking for the briefest of moments on his features before he returned to looking through the glass window of the observation bay, his expression flat once more. "But I suppose you wouldn't have come down here, you were only here for thirty-six hours, weren't you..."

Bruce filed away the thought that Dr. Crane had clearly looked through his old patient file for a later time. "Can I ask what exactly it is that you're observing, Doctor?"

"Drug tests."

“Um…” Jackie waited a beat, looking at the doctor curiously. "What kind, Pro-," she caught herself, " _Doctor_ Crane?"

"For anxiety," the doctor responded, his eyes not leaving the patient lying on the bed. Bruce peeked over Jackie's shoulder, seeing the patient quake visibly in their restraints. The lights made the tears on her cheeks glisten, and Bruce felt a sharp pang of empathy. His fingers stiffened, wanting to clench into fists.

"Isn't that Claire? Why is she restrained?" Jackie asked, worry etching over her face. "I thought she was marinthrophobic." 

"We don't discuss patients' histories with guests, child," Dr. Crane said with the patient air of an elementary school teacher. "I suppose the damage is done," he continued, a flash of distaste in his voice before turning to Jackie with a professional tone. "I can't study the effects properly otherwise; this will give me a window into seeing if the medication overtakes the fear of the restraints."

"Oh... Makes sense," Jackie agreed half-heartedly with a nod. "Well, um, I won't take up more of your time, Dr. Crane."

"Yes, it's best you don't keep Dr. Thompson waiting, Miss Lant. He’s quite a stickler for time-keeping. Nice meeting you, Mr. Wayne," the doctor said, extending his bony hand.

Bruce shook it, feeling a pathetic attempt at a business-squeeze on his knuckles. It wouldn't take much for Bruce to break his hand, and he felt the horrible rush of temptation to do just that. For John's safety or his own discomfort, Bruce wasn't sure. "Nice to meet you, too, doctor."

"If you decide you want to return to therapy, Mr. Wayne, I'd be delighted to give you a spot on my couch here," the doctor offered, a flicker of a smile on his face accompanying the rise in his tone. There was something about it all that made Bruce uncomfortable.

"I'll...make a note of that," Bruce replied awkwardly as the trainee began to lead the way down the hall. Once they were far away enough, he muttered, "Is he always like that?"

"Dr. Crane? Yeah, but you get used to it. I had his course my senior year at Gotham University, before he left - he's brilliant, but he doesn't exactly open up to other people a lot. I figured it's his upbringing." Jackie smiled innocently up at him. "The formative years usually play a lot into your psyche."

Bruce decided not to say anything else to that. He didn’t want to think about exactly what his youth did to his mental state.

They stopped in front of a door with a paper sign saying ‘SUPERINTENDENT DR. THOMPSON’ in large font. "Well, here you are, Mr. Wayne. I'm sure Dr. Thompson will escort you back downstairs."

"Thanks, Jackie," Bruce smiled as the young woman fluttered her lashes once and brushed past him, the reddish-orange of her short curly hair the only colorful thing in the hall.

Dr. Thompson may have been a practicing psychiatrist, but there was no mistaking the businessman underneath, springing to the surface when he looked up from his screen. You didn't get to run an asylum without being both.

"Mr. Wayne! How nice to see you again." It was difficult to pinpoint his age exactly, but he must have been twice the age of Bruce at least.

"Doctor Thompson," Bruce said as he returned the polite handshake. "You look well."

"I don't exactly feel like it, Mr. Wayne, but thank you. I can't say I'm surprised to see you, but I am surprised that it's been a while since you've come purely to check up on your contributions."

Bruce fought down the blush wanting to creep up his face. He'd been coming every week, but every time he split his time seeing John and doing a casual check of the various new improvements, and meeting a few members of the board. His generous contributions on behalf of Wayne Enterprise made them all sit up and give him a bit of a word in here and there, but his father's abhorrent past made them keep a close eye on him. "Well, Wayne Enterprise is a pretty harsh mistress - I have to split my time carefully these days, regardless of what I want."

Dr. Thompson searched him for the quickest moment, but an understanding smile played on his face. "Yes, it's like juggling two jobs, isn't it? Business and friendships - both hard to maintain, especially together."

Bruce was grateful he no longer had the mantle of Batman to uphold, too. It made agreeing with Dr. Thompson a lot easier.

"So, you've seen the new additions to the medical bay and the basement restoration - how about I show you some of the new surveillance equipment we're installing?"

"I'd love to."

"Great, we'll talk on the way." Dr. Thompson gently steered Bruce out the door.

Bruce let his mind run through different questions to ask. Dr. Crane, the medical testing, Jackie Lant...

"So, do you always stay so close to the medical testing facility?" Dr. Thompson raised an eyebrow at him. "Miss Lant showed me on the way. I could've sworn your office wasn't in this part of the building last time."

"This is just temporary; my real office was infiltrated last week," Dr. Thompson's smile turned into a serious line. "Nothing taken, thankfully, but they seemed to have left in a hurry."

"Any idea what they were looking for?"

"Files, but there were no prints on the open cabinet and the camera in the hall was conveniently turned away from the door the night we had a new guard on duty."

Someone who knew the inner workings of Arkham, then. Security and staff were high on that suspect list. _And John_ , a nagging voice at the back of his head said. But that would've been very difficult for John to pull off, considering he was kept a firm watch on since the Joker incident. "What were they, patient files or something? I thought those would've been kept in their own room, with how old this place is," Bruce said with a practiced look of concern.

"They are," the doctor answered, glancing at him. "They were facility records. Finances and the like. They were shuffled to the patient records and my computer was securely transferred down here while we're reconfiguring the security measures upstairs. The new cameras are going live tomorrow evening."

"Good to know it's sooner rather than later," Bruce replied, offering a kind smile as they continued to the monitoring station two floors below.

Whether he needed it for later or not, Bruce would remember that.

*~*~*~*~*

Bruce clung to the steering wheel as he glared out the traffic in front of him.

Once again, he was prevented from seeing John. The receptionist at the front said there was some new medication he was being put on at that hour that would make him too drowsy to hold any kind of conversation until he got used to it. The orderly hadn't known the name of the new drug, just got passed a note saying as much that morning.

Something was definitely wrong. He didn't care if it was just an excuse to punish John for the phone call or anything else he might have done; not seeing him for almost three weeks except for a chance encounter in the hall wasn't right.

He knew he could argue with himself all day about how it might have just been coincidence, might have just been him almost desperately wanting to see John again and getting angry about being denied it. He knew Alfred would say as much.

But Alfred wasn't here. He hadn't heard John asking for help. Hadn't met the unnerving Dr. Crane for himself.

He had to find out who Art was.

Bruce breathed deep. He couldn't go back and look through the filing cabinet himself, it was too risky, mask or no mask.

He willed himself to calm down. He had to be rational.

Traffic wasn't going to be moving very fast for very long… He had things he needed to learn.

Bruce dialed Tiffany.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Tiffany," he started, quieter than he thought he would be. "You got a minute?"

"...you need a favor?"

"Well, yeah - I mean, if that's okay."

"You didn't break one of my toys, did you?"

Bruce smiled slightly. Tiffany was still Lucius' daughter. "No, don't worry, it's not a repair I need."

"Well, I figured, but... Just checking. So, what’s up?"

"I need you to find a name for me. Think you can break into Arkham's database?"

"...into Arkham?" He practically heard her narrowing her eyes. "Why?"

"I'm just checking up something." He was starting to feel flustered. "For a friend," he added.

"A friend, huh?" Bruce felt the doubt in her voice. He was sure she knew exactly which friend he was referring to, and he was sure she was judging him. "Alright. Which names?"

"A Dr. Jonathan Crane, no 'h', and any patient named Art or Arthur."

"I'm guessing the doctor _isn't_ a patient?"

"No, practicing at Arkham."

"Right. It could take a while. I'm guessing you called me because you didn't want to boot up your old gear?"

Bruce swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. "Yeah."

"...I'll call you when I find something. About an hour?"

"Sure, fine. Thanks, Tiffany. I mean it."

"Don't thank me yet, Bruce. I still need to find you something," she added lightly.

Bruce cursed Gotham's twisting, crowded roads as he drove the rest of the way with the classical station on loud, trying to drown himself in the orchestra filling his ears as he tried not to think about how much easier this entire thing would be if he could just put on the Batsuit.

The mansion felt huge and empty when Bruce finally walked in.

In truth, it always felt that way. Too big, too open, too quiet. It would be too long before Alfred's next Skype call, and longer until Alfred decided to take a break from his long and well-deserved vacation.

The moment Bruce had started driving John to the bridge, he entertained the thought of bringing him here. To his house, to the Batcave, to show everything he had to the one person who would actually _see_ everything. He had no doubt John would know exactly what was Bruce's and what wasn't.

Even after everything that happened, Bruce liked the idea of him here, despite the bittersweet flavor it seemed to leave. Taking up space, breaking the silence, sneaking in everywhere he could get, potentially breaking something expensive by accident that Alfred would later mutter about but Bruce would secretly smile at.

Heirlooms were one thing, photos another, but the expensive furniture and modern art Bruce only kept for show - for the billionaire playboy with too much money and time on his hands - he always wanted to treat like the garbage it was.

He turned on the billiard room's fire and sank into the armchair, watching the flames dance as he tried to breathe. It was so hard to think about anything else but the case.

What did he even suspect Dr. Crane of doing? Treating his patients with unusual and unkind methods? Giving off a creepy vibe?

All he had was John's word that something was wrong. John's word and Bruce's gut.

Just how much faith did he want to put into both?

The synthesized jingle of his phone buzzing away almost jolted him out of his thoughts.

"Tiffany?"

"Bruce, I've found something. Are you sitting down?" Without waiting to hear his response, she continued. "What do you want to hear first:  Crane, or Arthur?"

"Crane."

"Right," she continued, sounding a bit more normal, "Well, Dr. Crane has been working in Arkham for a little over a year, has a relatively normal file, worked at Gotham U. for years - but his proclaimed area of expertise is a little weird."

"Fear?"

"...did you look him up already?"

"He's written three papers on the subject alone. All open to the public."

"Yeah, well, they're all listed on his references. They all as creepy as they sound? The _Working Through Grief_ article he has sounds pretty normal."

"Fear is unnatural, fear is a byproduct of primitive impulse, fear is conquered best with constant exposure - pretty much all like that. I haven't read the _Working Through Grief_ one yet."

"Yikes, glad I don't have to actually read those. Don't know how I'd sleep..." Bruce felt a smile lift a bit at her tone. "He was basically on the wait list until Arkham gave in and hired him. Seemed the last five years shifted out a few doctors from there and he wasn't chosen until a year ago. The last two seemed to just drop off the face of the Earth."

Probably at the bottom of the Gotham River, if not buried in concrete somewhere. "Missing persons?"

"You got it. Both of them specialized in the sort of...research section, I guess?"

Bruce could see the terrified woman on the table. See Dr. Crane staring at her through the window with a blank face, like it was just something that happened every day. "Medicinal testing wing. I've seen it."

"You've seen it? How?"

"I went to check up on what my contributions were going to, got a bit of a tour - what about Arthur?"

"Right:  I found two Arthurs, one's a guard on morning duty, the other a patient. Or... _was_ a patient, actually. Arthur Mooney passed away almost three weeks ago."

"How?"

"Suicide's what's listed, but I couldn't find the details. Guy had a whole list of problems on here. I think it's safe to say he was a total whacko."

Bruce set his jaw, half a mind to tell Tiffany that that sort of casual dismissal of mental issues was as unhealthy as it was disrespectful, but he didn't have the energy to go through a full argument like that. He allowed a sigh through his nostrils instead. "Anything on the guard?"

"Arthur West; nothing special. Forty-four, average height, decent references, no misbehavior on record."

"What floor does he frequent?"

"Uh, I don't think that kind of thing is set in _stone_ , but I'm pretty sure it's the first floor, judging by the crude map I got. Why?"

First floor was for the quieter, better-behaved patients, as well as a slightly larger nurse's station. Despite him going along quietly and being on fairly good behavior, John was stationed on the fifth. "I wanted to see if the two ever came into contact with one another. If the guard doesn't circulate regularly, it's a pretty slim chance. What floor was the patient stationed on?"

"...five. And you'll never guess who the last doctor on his list is."

A patient suicide on the same floor as John. A patient of Crane's.

Bruce pictured the medical testing room, with John strapped inside, and Crane watching through the window.

He felt like he wanted to throw up and hit something at the same time. He breathed deep, trying to calm his racing heart and force the image away.

"Bruce?"

"Tiffany...thank you. Good work."

"...Bruce," she started hesitantly, "What are you going to do?"

He wasn't sure yet. It would be easy - so, _so_ easy - to put on his old suit and sneak into Arkham, do a search before making Crane talk.

Or, he could try to find the coroner's report on Art. Go back to Arkham like nothing happened, force his way into talking with John, see if he knew anything else.

"Tiffany, can you find what exactly it is that Dr. Crane is using on his patients? What he's prescribing them?"

"Probably, but it'll take a bit to get back in. It's too risky to stay on the phone and search at the same time, even if the line's secure."

"Great. If you happen to find the coroner's report on Mooney -"

"I'll send it your way, too, Bruce. I'm guessing you're doing this the more... _Wayne_ sort of way?"

"I hung up the suit, Tiff'. I'm not taking it back out unless I know I need to."

"...your call. I'll send you stuff when I get it."

"Thanks, Tiffany."

"I'm doing this for you, you know," she interjected. "Not him."

Bruce felt his heart sink. He knew it, but he didn't want to hear it. "You know I appreciate it, Tiff'."

"Bye, Bruce."

The call ended with a beep, and Bruce sat there staring at the colorful stripes that made up his lock-screen, thinking too much about everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …I was *this* close to stepping over the boundary and making Bruce’s lock-screen purple and green, but I decided to go with “colorful” instead. 
> 
> Also, thank you so much for all the positive feedback! You guys are such sweethearts!!! (๑ˊ͈ ॢꇴ ˋ͈)〜♡॰ॱ


	4. Bad Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO SO SO much for all this kind feedback! Like... _wow..._ I don't think I've ever had this much response in such a short amount of time. You guys are _amazing!_ (๑´ლ`๑)ﾌﾌ♡
> 
>  **Important Spoiler Tags:** mentions of suicide and death, fainting

The nurse escorting Bruce had warned him that John might not be able to talk much, since he was working off a sedative. He'd apparently had a violent fit during a therapy session the night before. Bruce insisted on seeing him anyway.

They didn't normally allow Bruce into John's room. Their visits tended to take place in the visiting area, with John secured to a table and a guard watching them from the door; the two exceptions had been when the visitor’s room was undergoing maintenance. Bruce was oddly comforted by John’s space, even if it was technically a cell. It was like John’s energy just coated the walls and filled in the cracks, making it seem brighter than it really was.

John was lying down, face screwed up lightly in concentration as he breathed slowly, the bright green cashmere blanket Bruce had gotten him for the approaching winter tossed over his legs.

"John, you got a visitor," the orderly's said.

John's eyes opened halfway, looking right at Bruce as if he knew exactly where he'd stand, and the billionaire felt his breath hitch.

"Bruce," he said with a soft smile and a slow blink.

Bruce could feel the orderly's beady eyes on him. Mark Sylvester was one of the good ones, despite his gruff face. "I'll be right outside this door. I hear anything funny-like, and I'm barging in."

"Thank you," Bruce said politely, flashing a small grateful smile the orderly's way. “I think we’ll be alright.”

“Just remember, Moneybags, I can’t be _bought_.” With one last threatening glance from Mark, the door shut, and Bruce and John were finally as alone as they could get.

John was watching him, but not quite seeing him; seeming so unlike himself that Bruce wanted to reach down and grab one of his hands to make sure he was the real John. "You came," he said softly.

"Of course."

"Sorry I can't stand," he said with a weak smile. "This stuff's kinda strong."

Bruce knelt down next to the bed, not caring if his knees felt uncomfortable. "It's alright. Can you tell me what happened?"

The smile flipped upside down, and foggy eyes turned downcast. "I... I'm not sure."

"Anything will help, John." He reached forward to lay one hand on top of John's, caring more about John's comfort than his own embarrassment.

"I was...downstairs," John blinked, breathing in deeper. "Therapy."

"With Dr. Crane?"

John nodded his head, a fierce look sparking through the fog. "We talked, I think. He did something..." He struggled for a moment. "Pinched me." _A needle_ , Bruce thought. "Said something like...'this one's _new,'"_ he said in a mocking imitation of Crane's higher pitch. "It got too noisy, and I was..." he trailed off, looking ashamed and swallowing, " _upset._ Next thing I know, I'm up here."

"Arthur Mooney," Bruce said quietly, "was the patient up here, the 'Art' you mentioned?"

John's fierce look returned and bored into Bruce, piercing him and pinning him where he knelt. "I saw him walk past me, Bruce," he ground out. "That night. I _saw_ him."

Bruce squeezed John's hand reassuringly.

"Crane _killed_ him." John stared hard.

"I looked at Art's autopsy report. He clawed half his face off, but toxicology only showed low amounts of some anti-psychotic he’d been prescribed."

John cracked an unnerving smile that reached his eyes half-way. "They told me I almost did that to Crane."

Bruce blinked.

"At least...that's what the nurse said this morning," he said with a soft _hah_ , a familiar flash of _Joker_ passing over him.

Bruce looked down the warm, pale hand he was touching, quickly scanning the tips. Clean, except for the flecks of white powder sitting here and there around the cuticles; they must have filed his nails while he was still fully sedated. His wrist, though, had a light bruise forming a semi-circle, as if he'd been struggling against a cuff.

He'd likely been strapped to a chair or table when he was dosed with whatever Crane had given him. There was a chance he broke the cuffs holding him down. Bruce felt an odd mix of pride and alarm at the thought that John broke the restraint. "You said you saw...who, Art, the night he died? How did he look?"

John clenched his fists and took another few deep breaths. "Bad." His lip curled into a disgusted snarl.

"It’s okay, John. Walk me through it," Bruce soothed, squeezing his hand gently. He didn't mean to run his thumb against the side of John’s hand, but it started before he could stop it, so he wrestled down the awkward blush trying to rise to his face. John looked down at it like he could feel the little tiny shocks going over Bruce's fingertip. The simple gesture seemed to make him soften up all over.

"I heard him scream from the end of the hall – I got up to see. They had him in a straightjacket. He was... _scared_." The bright greens shining up at him looked so anxious that Bruce felt the urge to move closer. "I never saw him like that, Bruce. Not once." John shook his head, practically begging for Bruce to believe him. "Not _once_ ," he hissed.

Bruce felt his resolve harden, even as his heart quaked. "I won't let that happen to you, John."

"Pfft." John's mouth turned up somewhat as he started one of his nervous laughs. "Oh, Brucie," he said in-between giggles, shaking his head, "it's already started!"

Bruce glared, more at the knowledge that Crane had already began experimenting on John than anything John said. "Why haven't you told Dr. Leland?"

John's giggling faded, his breath finally evening out after the last _hee_ , and he blinked up at Bruce with watery eyes. "I can't," he said with a shake of his head.

"Do you think she won't believe you?"

John stared hard. "She would. That's why I can't, Bruce. I don't want her to wind up...you know. _Dead_. That guy…he's not afraid of _anything_ …"

"John, I'm going to stop him."

Soft green eyes flicked back to his and held steady, searching for something raw and bloody at the center.

Bruce looked back, his determination firm and honest.

John eventually smiled, affection so prevalent that it soothed and burned Bruce simultaneously. "I know you will."

*~*~*~*~*

Bruce had two options, as he saw it.

One, he could don the Batsuit, sneak into Arkham after hours while the cameras were off, and try and find whatever psychotic solution Crane was injecting into his patients so he could analyze it, bring whatever records Crane had with him, then use his old mantle to pull some influence in the GCPD and start a formal investigation, which would put a quick stop to Crane's sick research. Whatever the doctor did after that would be up to Crane.

Two, he could try to charm his way into stealing Crane's work, analyze it, and send copies to the right people. It would take a little longer, but it would be fairly legal.

Either way, the inmates - _John_ \- would be safe.

Bruce was staring at himself in the mirror of Arkham's restroom. He knew if he put on the Batsuit again, he'd be risking everything falling back to the way it was:  long, lonely, tired nights where he stood a chance of not coming back at all. It didn't matter how much he missed the thrill and the work and the satisfaction of cleaning up Gotham with his fists - he couldn't risk losing Alfred again, or anyone else who knew him. He wanted to have a normal life, one that he'd invite John into when the man got out.

Bruce could see if he could work his way back downstairs, pretend to be curious after everything that happened. If it worked, it worked. If it didn't, he'd be forced to come back.

He straightened his back, adjusted his tie, and breathed deeply through his nostrils, slipping the mask of the flirty philanthropist on with a sly little smile at his reflection.

He'd find an orderly or a nurse, one of those that gave him those shy appreciative looks that held daydreams of snatching his attention.

The bathroom door swung open and he smacked right into someone, making them drop their clipboard and scattering the papers that had fallen free from the clip.

"Oh God, I am so sorry," Jackie Lant babbled, stooping to pick up the mess.

Bruce knelt down to help, gathering a pile of paper close to him and holding it out to her with all the charm he could muster. "No need to apologize, Jackie. Entirely my fault."

The red-head blushed as she looked back at him through her eyelashes. "Oh, that's, uh," she stammered, taking the papers, "that's okay, Mr. Wayne. I should've watched where I was going."

"Well, at least you know which part of the building you're going toward," he said with a joking smile as they rose to a stand. "I'd do anything to figure this place out."

She smiled back, the light pink flush still present. "Well, I could, um... Show you around better, if you'd like. I've got some time on my hands." She fiddled with adjusting a loose paper in her hands. "You'd owe me a coffee, though," she added with a raised eyebrow and a flirty smirk.

"I think I can manage that," Bruce said playfully, "I know a cafe not far from here."

Jackie squared her shoulders, her smile widening triumphantly. "I get off for lunch in about fifteen minutes. I think I can guide you around under pretense long enough to leave with you. Was there something specific you wanted to see?"

"Well, I have to admit, I've only seen so much of the place. I think Dr. Thompson mentioned putting some of the funding into developmental research, but I didn't get the chance to see anything last time."

"Oh, right," the young doctor-in-training nodded thoughtfully. "It does get pretty hectic around here. Weird that weekends aren't so busy, despite visitors, isn't it?" She flashed a smile up at him. "Follow me, Mr. Wayne."

"You can call me Bruce, if you want," he added, slapping on the charm.

"Bruce," she tested it, eyes shining innocently at him as she led the way to the elevator.

He felt an awful sting in his stomach. He didn't like taking advantage of people's feelings. He already saw the damage it could do - even though it was the best option at the time to take advantage of John's friendship, he still felt guilty over seeing John crumble because of it.

Though, despite everything that happened, he would never have turned the clock back and rejected him at any point. Bruce would never trade away the time they shared.

And at that thought, Joker's face appeared, smeared with makeup and blood and a multitude of complex emotion that Bruce couldn't put a single word to. _You are one messed up guy_.

Bruce felt the corner of his mouth twitch at the thought. He _was_ , wasn’t he? They both were.

"You can tell I'm nervous, right?" Jackie said shyly, stirring Bruce out of his thoughts as they rode the elevator down to the basement. "I'm not, usually. It’s easier when I’m in work-mode… My social life doesn't exactly thrive here."

"That's a surprise. I would've thought you'd be popular with the doctors," Bruce commented, smiling pleasantly down at the red-head.

Jackie scoffed, but smiled back partway. "A bit more than the coffee-runners they have manning the first two floors. But... I don't know. Maybe I try too hard to please everybody or something."

"As long as you don't go chasing after people, you'll be fine," he advised.

The basement was colder than Bruce remembered, but he hadn’t gotten to see all of it the last time he was down there. They passed a large server room with big glass windows (Bruce figured they had to have been bullet-proof, with how thick they looked, and once again wondered what the room used to be for), and then entered the research facility, a cold, white room that reminded Bruce of a crime laboratory more than anything. Two large refrigerators, a lot expensive-looking machines, and a ton of cabinets that lined the walls, both for storing files and chemicals. Experimental medicines could be housed anywhere.

Bruce glanced around, spying a single dead camera in the corner and one man in a lab coat, fiddling with one of the machines. "This place looks almost like a kitchen."

"That's what I said the first time I saw it, too," Jackie beamed at him.

"Hey, Jackie, who's-" the young man in the lab coat turned, dull blue eyes honing in on the pair of them, "um... Hi. Aren't you Bruce Wayne?"

"That's what it says on my birth certificate," Bruce joked with a playful smile.

"Jackie, you're lucky no one else is down here," the man said with a flat look in Jackie's direction. "If ol' Scarecrow knew you were showing people around -"

"Dave, stop calling him that," Jackie said with the tired look of someone who had said that exact phrase a hundred times. "And Dr. Crane _won't_ know, because _you're_ not going to tell him. Else I'll tell Rupert you skipped out early the other day."

Dave pouted, but resigned. "So, Mr. Wayne - what brings you to our little secret lair?"

Bruce smiled. "Just curiosity, really." He openly eyed the tubes in Dave's hands. "Not quite sure what you guys do down here."

Dave didn't seem surprised, but he did light up with a new sort of interest in the conversation. "Oh, well - we test new medical formulas. You know, seeing what compound A will do when mixed with compound B, that kind of thing. Then we test stuff with blood and cell samples, then rats, then upscale it to people."

"Sounds kind of vague," Bruce commented with a raised brow.

"Well, we all have our own personal favorite kinds of problems to work on. I mean, the boss usually tells us which meds to concentrate on, but...still." Dave gave a sort of shrug. "I'd like to concentrate more on stuff to treat Alzheimer’s, but Rupert's got me trying out new anti-depressant formulas."

"So do you work on these experiments, too, Jackie?" Bruce turned; Jackie instantly waved it off.

"No, no, not me - I've just been the gopher for people down here. Usually when the boss doesn't have anything else for me to do."

Bruce nodded, looking around at the equipment and searching for the most likely place Crane would stash his formulas. "I'm surprised there's not more people down here, this time of day. The lab at Wayne Enterprises was always bustling."

"Weekend rotation," Dave said with a shrug, "This place will be packed again come Monday."

"I know this sounds...stupid," Bruce added with a deliberately embarrassed look, "but do you guys keep the tubes those in glass racks, the kind in movies? Where you pull the doors open and mist comes pouring out?"

Dave sniggered and Jackie gave a light giggle.

"Not, uh, _quite_ , Bruce," Jackie said with a humored look. Bruce feigned more embarrassment. "Here, I'll show you."

A door that reminded Bruce of a built-in wine cooler opened, and Bruce shot a look over at Dave - the guy was fiddling with something in a drawer.

It looked like every bottle inside was labeled with a doctor's name and a number series, all nestling together like a spice cupboard. There were some big gaps and some smaller ones.

"See? Not exactly the best organization."

"I've got to go feed the rats. See ya around, Jackie," Dave called, shaking a bottle and a dropper in his hand at the pair of them.

"Huh? Oh, okay."

Bruce had two options:  he could knock her out, or copy her keycard with his phone. Both were risky, and he wasn't sure if the hallway camera worked or not.

He felt the tiny bottle of a concentrated knock-out formula in his pocket. He'd started carrying it on his other belt a year ago, but never found the opportunity to use it; despite that he was just a civilian now, it was one of those things he couldn't stop himself from carrying around, like the ceramic knife hidden away elsewhere. You never know when someone dangerous needed to be knocked out for a few minutes.

No handkerchief in that pocket, but it wasn't necessary. A quick squirt on his fingers like it was hand sanitizer, and all he had to do was look at Jackie with a flirty smirk. "Jackie, you've got a little something..." He trailed off, reaching up to brush imaginary dirt off under her nose.

The trainee's face turned beet red as she gasped softly, and then her eyes rolled back as she fainted. Bruce caught her easily and set her gently on the floor, making sure to wipe his fingers on the handkerchief in his breast pocket as he started his search.

The clock was ticking. He had a minute, maybe two.

The open cupboard had names starting with "P" and ending with "S". He counted cupboards to the left until he reached what should've been the first, and yanked it open.

Crane's experiments were on the bottom shelf, taking the whole space. John had implied that yesterday's injection had been the latest formula - sure enough, there were three tiny bottles labeled "CRANE, FDR-27". He grabbed one, shifting the bottles slightly apart, and stashed it in his breast pocket, wrapping carefully it in the handkerchief he always kept there.

At least the filing cabinets were a lot easier. Crane seemed to keep short, simple records. Bruce flipped through to the end, until he saw FDR's results pages, and snapped a picture of the last two pages on his phone, despite the word "rats" standing out to him.

He knew damn well what "rats" Crane was using. It made his stomach twist.

The file was returned just as it had been found, not a paper out of place, but the cabinet shut a little too loud for his liking.

Jackie groaned from the floor, and Bruce hurried to get to her.

"Jackie? Oh thank goodness," he muttered, attempting to help pull her up as she stirred, squinting up at the ceiling. "Are you okay?"

"What...what happened?"

"You fainted - I tried to wake you," he lied, putting on his best concerned face. "I was just going to get Dave. Do you want me to-?"

"No, no, I'm fine," she waved off, blinking in rapid succession to clear her vision as she sat up. "Just, uh, help me up, please."

Bruce complied, lifting carefully, and Jackie rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"Ugh... I'm so embarrassed."

"There's no need to be."

"Well, either this is a serious health concern, or I just got so flustered by you I... I'm going to go with health concern," she stated, looking away from him as her face blazed pink.

"Do you need me to give you a ride to the hospital?"

"No, it's okay. I'll give my G.P. a call and get an Uber over there."

"Are you sure?"

Jackie Lant smiled shyly, shrugging a little. "Yeah. Can I get a rain check on that lunch?"

"Of course."

Bruce knew he should mean that, that it could just be a friendly encounter rather than a very fake date, but he was already feeling like he'd want to do anything but go through with it.

*~*~*~*~*

It felt strange to go back down to the cave. He hadn't been there in months; he'd covered everything he could with dust cover sheet and parked the Batmobile with the rest of his cars, despite driving around with the red plates often. Medical supplies downstairs were still good - he only kept it stocked because Tiffany might have needed urgent medical care on the job. So far, they were untouched, but they had maybe another five months until he had to replace them.

It had taken quite a while to get the sheet that covered the monitors of the giant computer up in the first place, so taking it off was both cathartic and annoying. He'd have to put it back up later.

Booting up the Batcomputer after so long felt like putting on a favorite shirt. He knew he had to keep his distance from the feeling:  it was the only machine powerful enough to analyze Crane's formula.

It didn't take long. It was a simple saline solution with a touch of cornstarch and food coloring.

He'd planted fakes in the basement lab. His real formula had to have been elsewhere. Bruce put his head in his hands, struggling to breathe properly. It was a waste of time. A _complete_ waste of time.

But he hated to think what would've happened if he had gone as Batman and still found nothing. It might have jeopardized his identity...again. He wouldn't have had another chance to infiltrate the place without a high chance of being seen.

The documents Bruce had taken pictures of weren't much help, either, but they did seem disturbing. A lot of mentions of the lab rats having violent spasms and restless energy. Two rats put together in the same cage viciously attacked one another.

Bruce thought back to the papers and articles Crane had written. Jonathan Crane specialized in the study of fear.

John had said Art had been scared for the first time since John had met him. Bruce didn't doubt it.

Crane must have been inducing fear chemically in his test subjects, to watch what happened when they were frightened out of their minds.

It was the only thing that made sense. He just had no real proof.

He stared at the monitor, pictures and results on screen.

If he had just stolen the I.D., Bruce would've been able to get inside Arkham without putting on the mask. He could've waited in Crane's office and surprised him...

The Batcomputer made his unknown-caller ringtone a lot louder. He patched it through anyway, figuring if it was another damn spam call he'd track them down and break their autodialing machine himself.

"Hello?"

"Um, hi, Bruce. I, uh, took the rest of the day off. I know I said a raincheck, but... Do you have time to meet up now? I've been given the all-clear on the health front."

Perfect opportunity to copy her I.D.

"Sure, as long as you're feeling up to it."

"Oh! Yes, of course. Is Café Tristé okay? It's closer to the doctor's."

It wasn't okay. It was where he had talked with Selina and Harvey almost two years ago, before things went south, before Harvey broke and would never again want to see him, regardless of how Bruce had tried.

Worse still, it was where he and John had gone in the middle of the night over half a year ago, where Bruce had really felt a _pull_ towards him. It'd been there since the beginning, he knew, lingering at the edge, pulling at him in slow bursts like he was a fish hungrily chasing a fisherman’s lure.

And that night, he'd let himself be caught and _enjoy_ himself for once, immersing himself in John’s presence and feeling less and less awkward with every sentence. He figured he could cut the line if need be.

Of course something had happened to prevent that. (What it was, exactly, he couldn’t say; it might have just been the strangely enjoyable conversation, or it might have been just John being himself, or it might have been the odd, soft beauty that came through the talk about Arkham’s lights that made Bruce feel almost weightless.) There was no turning back. He was with John through everything, whether their fates traced in a circle together or went off to start a new line. He didn't want to even think of a life without John in it. He didn't want to dwell on why.

"That sounds fine, Jackie."

Bruce's comfort came second. He'd do this for John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _You do it for hiiiim, and you would do it agaaaiinn~_ ♪♪♪ ヽ(･ˇ∀ˇ･ゞ)
> 
> TBH, I had planned from the beginning on Bruce having to jump through weird TellTale-scenario hoops to get his hands on Crane’s drug, but I since I had also already planned on something special, the little brain gremlin – that wee troublemaker every writer has in counterpart to their Muse – was like, “ _hahaha!_ You know what would be _hilarious?!”_ So I listened, and thus Bruce’s day was completely ruined. You know I had to do it to ‘im. (꒪ॢ∀꒪;)՞л̵ʱªʱª Good thing Bruce carries equipment around all the time!
> 
> See you guys next Wednesday, same site, same bat-story...


	5. The Spark on the Wick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why are you all the goddamn sweetest???!!!! (´•ω•̥`) Thank you so much for your continuous support! I love you guys!!
> 
> ( **FYI:** There's nothing in this chapter that's not mentioned in the tags.)

Bruce was just grateful that Jackie wasn't in the habit of drinking frappes. He didn't know what he'd do if he had to see her (or anyone else, honestly) drinking the same enormous sugary frozen beverage that John had preferred. He might not be able to get the image of that night out of his head otherwise.

Jackie sipped her latte slowly, looking out into the street.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" Bruce asked, taking a sip from his black expresso. They'd gotten small-talk over with and had been sitting in silence for maybe a full minute. He didn't care if they were sitting in a completely different area from where he had been months ago - he still felt uncomfortable.

"Yeah, sorry. Just thinking." She frowned slightly, looking down at her paper cup. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"That...John Doe guy. The one you keep visiting." Her eyes flashed up at him, one eyebrow raised. "What is he to you?"

He was horribly reminded of John asking him about Catwoman:  _What is your relationship with her? Your real one._

Bruce wanted to run. Wanted to threaten. Wanted to do anything else but answer Jackie; it meant answering himself.

"He's a friend," he said as he had many times before. It was true - it always was.

"I see," she said seriously, staring hard at her cup. "I've heard he talks about you a lot. He thinks you two are alike." She smiled disbelievingly, looking at him like she knew better. "I don't see that, honestly. What I know of both of you... You guys are like night and day."

Contrasting, blended at points, but never the same and always inseparable. A line (a time) between them, always, that it seemed would never be erased. Cell bars, buildings, morality, secrets - thin things that kept them apart.

 _Drew them together_ , Bruce felt. He pushed the feeling down, trying desperately to wrangle it. If he didn't, he knew it would open a door too dangerous to step back from. He didn’t deserve to open it in the first place.

"I suppose," Bruce answered, looking into the shining dark depths of his cup. He wasn't about to tell her the surprising things that they had things in common... "I guess we just sort of clicked. He helped me once -" twice, more, so _many_ times, "I want to help him, too."

Jackie smiled kindly. "You're a nice guy, Bruce." She took another gulp of her coffee, seeming to mull something over. "Look, I... I'll be honest. I didn't see my G.P." She looked up at him, her gaze worried. "I ran into Dr. Crane on my way out, and he helped me in his office. You know where that is?"

Bruce blinked. "Uh, no...?"

"It's this dark little corner room on the third floor. I've been there a couple of times, you know. He's always been kind of meticulous about keeping things clean, even when he was a teacher... Clean, minimalized, and out of sight." Jackie frowned, swirling her coffee cup around.

"Uh-huh." Bruce raised a brow, putting both of his elbows on the table, leaning forward to look at her a little better.

"He didn't expect to see me, you know. He tried to hide the folder on his desk." She glanced at him guiltily. "I managed to peek when he stepped out for a minute. It was written notes on the drug he's been experimenting with - FDR. Only the label on the file was a patient's initials:  J.D."

Bruce knew he should've seen it coming. He already knew Crane was experimenting on John, as well as others, but it didn't make the news hurt any less.

"I can't go to Dr. Thompson - he's authorized a lot of Crane's requests. I checked."

" _You_ were the one who broke into his office?"

"I had to _check_ \- they don't allow me a lot of access, Bruce," Jackie strained as she crossed her arms. "All the research gets approved by Dr. Thompson; I'm sure he knows what Crane's doing. I managed to take a picture of the notes in the J.D. folder," Jackie said, hurrying to get her phone out of her pocket. "I need to get more, and then I need your help talking to the rest of the board. I'm only a step above an intern - they'll _listen_ to you, even if this stuff is procured...off-record."

It wasn't as if he doubted her. He knew Crane was performing unethical experiments... But she was getting herself in too deep. "Jackie, if Crane is actually doing something-"

"He is." Bruce's phone buzzed loudly and she stashed her phone away again. "Take a look for yourself."

The first page of notes, mentioning the therapy sessions they'd had. He skimmed them, certain things jumping out:

> _I find myself curious about what it must have felt like, wandering the streets with almost nothing and winding up in a pack of criminals. Patient J.D. speaks about it as if it were a thrilling adventure, despite his dislike of the "noise" of the city and the thought of being left alone..._
> 
> _J.D.'s talks on his past excursions outside the asylum are - shall I say - enlightening. He exhibits no fear of his own mortality…_
> 
> _Today I asked what J.D. feared the most. He hummed and said he wasn't sure. Others have said the same, and always I caught them in their lie. I am sure he's playing with me..._
> 
> _FDR-24 showed only a mild reaction in J.D. where others were shaking helplessly in their seats..._

Bruce felt hot rage pumping through him - his arms, his legs, his fists. He wanted nothing more than to punch Crane's teeth in.

"I was going to say you shouldn't do this alone," he growled, trying to breathe deep and keep his head clear. "If Crane is as dangerous as he seems to be, I don't think he'd take you procuring evidence against him lightly."

Jackie looked thoughtful for a moment, tapping her index finger against the paper coffee cup. "Well... You have a point." She leaned forward on the table, her expression completely firm. "The security cameras will be out for a short time this evening while the system shifts over. It should be a fifteen minute window - I can get us in and out of Crane's office in less than that. Are you up for it?"

Bruce knew there would be no other opportunity, unless the camera system was sabotaged, and that was out of the question. Anonymously giving Arkham's medical board proof of Dr. Crane's gross misconduct would at least launch an investigation, even if they took it lightly.

The only thing that bothered him was the thought of Dr. Thompson knowing what Dr. Crane was experimenting with and on whom. It was certainly a possibility, but it could be that Dr. Thompson wasn't _entirely_ in the know about Dr. Crane's research. That was something he should check on later.

"Alright, if you're sure you can get me in without being seen." He was confident he could avoid the cameras even when they were on, but he couldn't let her know that. It brought up too many questions. "When should we meet?"

"The cameras are set to go off at midnight. I'll pick you up after 11 and bring us in through the back door a few minutes beforehand. They won't question me logging in there so late, I've gone in because I've forgotten things before..." She added with a somewhat embarrassed shrug. "And even if they ask later, we're not technically _stealing_ anything, so there's nothing they can pin down."

"Do you need the manor's address?"

Jackie smirked. "No need. It's only a Google search away."

Bruce felt himself smiling back halfway. "See you at 11, then?"

Jackie Lant stood, toasting with her coffee cup. "Cheers."

Bruce watched her go before moving to leave himself, glancing at the remains of the sandwich she'd had before he arrived. She hadn't told him how long she'd been waiting there for him, but he suspected it was long enough to really think over her idea.

*~*~*~*~*

The late-night drive to Arkham was quiet; Jackie had a serious air about her the entire ride. They only spoke about what they were going to grab:  get in, find all the recent patient files he kept and any notes on his mysterious formula he'd been injecting into them, take the pictures, and get out. If done right, they should be out three minutes before the cameras went back on.

Arkham's gates swung open for them, the sensor a few feet ahead of getting the signal from the tag hanging from the review mirror.

Bruce wondered if it always loomed over whoever entered it at night. It was only a building, but it felt like it was waiting to swallow him up and keep him buried in its belly.

He was never this nervous when he was on patrol before.

Then again, he usually had a Kevlar body-suit, sharp long-range weapons, and night-vision goggles when confronting a threat. Dr. Crane had the home field advantage. Bruce might know more of the twisting hallways than he always let on, but Dr. Crane undoubtedly knew where everything dangerous was stored and had access to all the inmates. He didn't want to think of what would happen if he was forced into a similar circumstance as the last time he fought a villain in Arkham Asylum.

At least this time John would be more helpful if he was somehow let out. He still remembered John sitting almost innocently on the table of the dining hall, delightedly watching Batman put a stop to all the chaos.

Jackie parked in the back lot as they'd planned. She talked to the guard before swiping the door, pointing in the direction of the side of the building with a worried shake of her head - likely spreading the story that she saw something unusual around the side of the building, and both security guards moved.

Bruce, with all his practice at sneaking around, still found his heart racing as he ducked behind other cars by reflex, keeping an eye on the second guard who no doubt would stop halfway, just to keep watch on the door and be near his partner. Maybe he was nervous the guard would turn around and look at the card scanner still blinking green.

The heavy door squealed a bit as he pushed it open the rest of the way, but thankfully there was no indication that the guard had decided to turn around and investigate.

"The cameras will go off in about forty seconds," Jackie said, looking at the second hand tick by on her phone. "We take the elevator up to the third floor and head right to Crane's office."

The stairs would be guarded in case of any escape attempts. Only staff could use the elevators at night, being on a card-key system that kicked on after visiting hours ended. A few veteran doctors were on hand in case there were problems, but it was unlikely, and Dr. Crane was not on the list of doctors staying behind and had a meticulous habit of leaving twenty minutes after lights out.

It was a tense ride upstairs. Despite knowing that the cameras were disabled, Bruce felt compelled to keep his head lowered anyway.

Bruce had been on the third floor only a couple of times before:  a few times to meet Dr. Thompson on business, and once to meet with John's main psychiatrist, Dr. Leland. That particular meeting had been right before he had been escorted to John's cell a few weeks after he'd been re-admitted, where she had explained the rules for visitations and told him in no uncertain terms to not bring up John's vigilantism and not to provoke any outbursts he may make.

It was strange, though, that John only brought up 'Joker' a handful of times. He'd had a few outbursts, too, but the last one he'd managed to eventually quell by himself.

He still remembered John's curt, shaky growl telling Bruce to leave after that. He'd refused to look at him; he’d refused to leave his cell, either, making Bruce talk to him briefly through the door. Just thinking of how tense and pained John had seemed when he stood there breathing deep, his fists clenching and unclenching, facing away from the door that separated him from Bruce, away from the torn, crumpled ball of newspaper with Tiffany Fox's photo printed next to the bit article regarding the latest in Wayne technologies that he'd thrown at the hole in the cell door.

Bruce hadn't found the right moment to tell John about Tiffany. John had long since figured out that he'd let Tiffany off the hook for Riddler's murder - he'd kept _that_ quiet until their argument, though Bruce wasn't surprised - but he hadn't known she was still working for Wayne Enterprises, let alone still living in Gotham.

He knew John had a right to be angry. Two years ago, Bruce wouldn't have dreamed of letting a murder go unpunished. He would have said that justice was all that mattered in the end.

But things changed. Black and white blended together and now everything was a strange shade of gray. Tiffany was the daughter of a friend - she was someone who needed guidance, needed protecting, ( _needed a father figure_ always sat unsaid, but the feeling was always there), not years in a prison cell.

John was similar. Bruce just knew he couldn't provide all the guidance John would need. John had gone too far for Bruce to really reach where Tiffany had gone just far enough to teeter on the edge. 

 _But both showed little remorse_ , something whispered in him.

 _But both are trying_ , something else grumbled back.

The elevator stopped with a tinny _ding_ , and Bruce followed Jackie's quick strides down the hall. Every door they passed was closed, locked, and dark; Jackie had a key stuck between her index and middle fingers like a talon. He hadn’t asked where she’d gotten it.

Dr. Crane's office was stuck in the corner of the hall, the florescent light humming and flickering above it. Bruce glanced up at it with a frown - he knew Arkham would be unnerving at night, but this was starting to look like a horror movie. All he needed was an ominous heavy breathing sound to start over the intercom.

Jackie didn't fumble as she unlocked the door, her eyes steely and focused. Bruce supposed that she had been in Arkham after dark before.

The light from the exterior spotlight shone through the gaps in the blind, casting stripes over everything. Even in semi-darkness, it looked like it was nothing but clean, bare minimum furniture. One desk, two visitors' chairs, one bookshelf, two filing cabinets. No posters or pictures on the walls or desks.

The little desk light switched on, and Jackie began to work on unlocking the desk drawers with a ring of keys possibly lifted from storage. Bruce moved to the filing cabinet by the bookshelf, giving it a once over for any extra folders or insights.

Naturally, more than a few books on the subjects of conquering fears and overcoming anxiety, along with half a shelf full of other psychology books on a broad range of disorders, a few books on human biology, and a few years' worth of _Psychology Now_ in numerical order. There was, however, three items on display sitting on the otherwise clear middle shelf:  an expensive pen hovering in the air between two magnetic plates, a porcelain phrenology bust, and a plastic figurine of what looked like a bony scarecrow with a pumpkin for a head.

Bruce narrowed his eyes at the display shelf. It was very out of place with the rest of Crane's minimal office. He knew the trinkets could likely be explained away, but Tiffany's mention of two missing doctors made him fairly sure they were trophies.

He started sorting through the various therapy files, ignoring the thought that he, too, collected memorabilia from his foes. ( _It was different, they weren't murder victims, they were outlandish criminals who he faced head-on and tried to take into custody every time_.)

Flipping through a few therapy notes in each file didn't show anything incriminating. It seemed the more normal sessions were all kept out in the open.

"Got it!" Jackie exclaimed, the desk drawer sliding open. "Anything over there?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary." Bruce turned to see what folders Jackie pulled out.

A.M., B.W., C.P., H.F...

_"Bruce?!"_

Bruce felt his heart jump. From fear, from surprise, from just hearing the voice he'd never forget - who could say?

John stood in the doorway, the dim desk light casting shadows over his face and showing off the Arkham logo on his regulation sweatshirt.

Jackie stood upright, her face the complete picture of panicked disbelief. "What… What the hell are _you_ doing here?!"

John glanced at her, then the table, then at Bruce - searching, seeing, _knowing_ \- and then he gave an understanding nod at the files piled on the desk, a light mischievous sort of grin forming. "Same as you, apparently."

Jackie still stared wide-eyed at him. "How did you even get out of your _cell?!"_

The light behind John flickered on and off with a stutter, as it had been doing every few minutes since they arrived, only now less light poured in from the outside with John standing in the doorway.

Bruce felt the atmosphere change with the flickering bulb, as if a sixth sense in the back of his head was awakened for the first time in months.

They weren't alone.

John was yanked backwards, a pale thin hand appearing to hold his shoulder, as a fist clutching a syringe pointed at the back of his neck. “Put your hands on your head, Mr. Doe,” Jonathan Crane said calmly, “and no sudden movements. I have thirty milliliters of FDR in hand.”

Green eyes flicked to Bruce, desperate and angry, but it was as if he was reading Bruce’s thought of _please don’t, he’s serious,_ he resigned to slowly put his hands on the back of his head, looking like he’d rather do anything but stand still.

"Nice to know you're capable of taking _some_ direction, Mr. Doe." Dr. Crane peered over John's shoulder, something dangerous shining through his otherwise plain expression.

Jackie Lant rolled her eyes with a snarl. "Oh, come ON!"

Bruce felt something cold dig into his side as Jackie grabbed his sleeve and held him tight to her. "Jackie, what-"

Jackie ignored him and dug the taser’s metal prongs into his abdomen as she stared down Crane. "I can't fucking believe this! First _Doe,_ then _you?_ Any more surprises out there in the hall?"

Bruce's mind was racing. He could kick Jackie's feet from under her or elbow her in the face to subdue her, but there was a chance that if he made any movements at all Crane would empty the syringe into John, and he had no guarantee of knowing exactly it would affect him.

"Just us, I'm afraid." Dr. Crane replied, keeping his gaze steady on the pair of them. "I supposed I should have kept a closer eye on Mr. Doe... I figure he must be why you're here?"

Jackie snorted. "Yeah, that's why _I'm_ here, for some nameless lunatic," she sneered, and Bruce winced distastefully at her.

"I wasn't talking to _you_ , child," Dr. Crane replied with a glare at the trainee.

Bruce and John shared a mutual look of disgusted disbelief. They were caught between two unstable medical practitioners having an argument. Wonderful.

"Now, I know why _I'm_ here," Dr. Crane explained, his eyes narrowing in displeasure, "and I can easily figure out why Mr. Wayne and Mr. Doe are here." John grimaced, trying to shoot a very threatening look at the doctor still hovering over his shoulder. "But I'm unclear as to why _you_ are threatening Mr. Wayne with what looks like one of the orderly's tasers," Dr. Crane added with a slight nod in the trainee's direction.

Jackie Lant dug the taser a harder into Bruce's side, making him flinch and John to glance worriedly over at him. _"Because_ if I shock him before you shoot Johnny Nobody there with your little toxin, you're going to have a hard time explaining the assault on Arkham's biggest banker, _that's_ why." She glared right at the doctor, apparently ignoring the furious look John was shooting her way. "He's only here so I could have someone to pin your death on," she added with a nod over at Bruce.

Pieces clicked together halfway. The only thing Bruce didn't know was Jackie's motive. Was she a relative of one of the missing doctors, or perhaps Hugo Strange? Or was she doing this out of some very misplaced heroism?

 _"What?!_ You little-!" John made a move to rush for her, hands automatically lowering and balling into fists, but Dr. Crane yanked him back by his shoulder and held him close by moving the hand to his collar-bone, the syringe needle sinking into the side of John's neck.

"Don’t move, Mr. Doe. That is, unless you want be responsible for two _more_ deaths."

John shuddered and grit his teeth hard, but made no other move. His nostrils flared as he glared dejectedly down at the hand pinning him to the doctor.

Dr. Crane continued. "I'm very disappointed in you, Miss Lant. You know I'll have to stop this."

"Are you kidding me? I'm one trigger-pull away from ending your career!"

"Yes, I suppose you are..." Dr. Crane looked away, seeming to think for a moment. "No matter."

There was a slight squelching sound, and John looked right at Bruce, wordlessly crying out for help as he managed to pull away too late.

“NO!” Bruce shouted, moving towards John-

Jackie pulled the trigger of the taser, and for three seconds Bruce felt his muscles spasm. Jackie let him fall into the bookshelf, and Bruce struggled to concentrate and grab hold of something as his body sank to the floor uncontrollably. John was shakily holding his neck, curling in on himself as he stumbled forward, a raspy gasp emerging from his throat. He was so far away, and Bruce felt helpless as he clutched the metal shelf like a lifeline, willing to move faster and steadier.

He failed him. He told John he would stop Crane…and he let John get injected.

Dr. Crane pocketed the empty needle. "I suppose now is a good time for me to branch out." The doctor still seemed to stare at Jackie, even as his head tilted towards John. "Mr. Doe, it seems Miss Lant has killed Bruce Wayne -"

_"No, no, no, no, NO -"_

"Yes, Mr. Doe. It's your fault for calling him here. Why did you do that? Did you just want revenge?"

John's hands buried in his hair, shaking his head firmly and muttering, face screwed up as Bruce fought to stand. Dr. Crane turned to leave as if nothing was wrong.

"John," Bruce ground out, managing to stand on both feet, "no..."

Jackie Lant began to sprint to the door, taser in hand, but the drug apparently kicked in full-throttle:  John swiftly grabbed the hand with the taser and twisted it to the side as his other fist sank into her jaw, letting her go so he could grab the weapon that clattered to the floor. Jackie let out a gurgled breath, her eyes squinting shut reflexively as she stepped back before having her head slammed into the wall.

“HOW _COULD_ YOU?!”

Adrenaline rushed through Bruce like rapids, giving him the will to move again, and he was faced with the decision to run after a fleeing Jonathan Crane or stop John from killing Jackie.

John poised the taser above Jackie's face.

He hated to do this, but he had no alternative.

"JOHN!"

Bruce ran and punched the side of John's head, hating the sick smacking noise as John fell to the side, the taser sliding from his hand and onto the floor.

John's eyes were shut and his face was relaxed - unconscious. Bruce knelt beside him and felt his neck for a pulse, momentarily terrified that maybe he had punched too hard.

Jackie stood with a grunt, blood smeared on her reddening mouth. Bruce glanced at her, hoping to reason -

She wasn't even looking at them. Her eyes were focused solely on the empty doorway.

"Jackie -!"

The young woman stooped to pick up the taser and walked past him, past John, and out the door with nothing but a dangerous grimace, only the promise of revenge radiating through her every move.

There was no way Bruce could leave John here. There was no guarantee that Jonathan Crane had left an antidote behind somewhere when he didn't even keep his experimental drugs in the lab. If Crane didn't need to take them before he left, that meant he brought them in from the outside every time; he carried them _with_ him.

The Batcomputer could synthesize an antidote faster than anyone else on hand. John was unconscious, and there was a parking lot with a few dozen cars sitting around. There had been an old burgundy Honda to the right of Jackie's car - it would be easy to break into with the Slim Jim resting at Bruce's thigh. He was glad he came prepared, but clearly he wasn’t prepared enough…

Bruce felt around John's waist - he must have stolen an I.D. to use the elevator. There was no way he could get down two floors so quickly otherwise, if the stairs were guarded.

Sure enough, a thin plastic card was between John's smooth pale hip and the elastic waistband of his sweatpants. A security guard, Honey West... He filed away the question of _how_ for later.

Bruce braced himself as he slung the thin man across his shoulder in a firefighter hold. He had to move fast. The elevator seemed so far away, even though he was running with his arms holding John in place.

John was a little lighter than he thought. Then again, he'd seemed a little slimmer than when they last saw each other properly. Whether it was from John not eating or a side effect of Crane's drug was debatable.

The elevator was in use, so Bruce had to wait.

John had been strong enough to carry _him_ , once. Bruce tried to fight down the memory of him - _Joker_ \- wrapping his arm around Batman's waist and grappling them away from the Agency's helicopter. Even through the Kevlar, he remembered he felt something warm near his stomach...

The descent down took far too long for Bruce’s liking. The thought of someone else calling it or being there on the other side when the doors opened was not a good one; fight or flight instinct was on high alert already, and the image of Crane just _walking away_ and the idea that anyone seeing them from the outside would try to stop Bruce from saving John made his blood boil. One handed or not, he would punch the teeth out of anyone who tried to get in his way. It was what he should’ve done to Crane the moment he snuck up behind John. It was what he should’ve let John do in the first place.

Bruce marched out of the elevator, straining his eyes and ears for any sign of movement. It was completely quiet.

Jackie Lant could have either gone to the security room with a story of half-truths, or tried to follow Crane out, but the look on her face made Bruce think of the latter. Bruce fingered the old ball of knockout gas in his pocket; if she hadn't stunned the guards outside, he'd have to throw it and run.

Making sure John was balanced, Bruce threw open the door a crack and rolled out the gas device, the security guards barely getting a chance to turn around as Bruce shut the door to wait. He heard coughing for a few seconds, then nothing.

He snatched the empty dispenser from the ground and broke into a run with one arm firmly around John's hips, hating how alive he felt as he made for the old Honda Accord parked two spaces away from where Jackie's four-door sedan had sat not long ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Hm, John would’ve needed to steal an ID to get downstairs, so I’ll need to name this random security guard –  
> Brain: [a la Joel Hodgson] HONEYYY WEST!  
> Me: What? No -  
> Brain: HONEY WEST!  
> Me: But -  
> Brain: H O N E Y W E S T  
> Me: ...Honey West it is.
> 
> I later thought "but wouldn't John just elbow Crane in the gut right away, and get drugged that way? Oh, but then we wouldn't learn some of Jackie's motivations...it would take way too long to play the innocent card with her, too...", but I honestly like what I wrote too much to change it, and I think this makes the hunt for _two_ unhinged doctors more fun! Who will they go after first? Hmm...
> 
> Also, yes, a Slim Jim is a flat yard-stick-like piece of metal that you unlock a car with and not just the name of that jerky. I had to double-check it because all I could think of was _“snap into a SlimJim!”_
> 
> I'm working on Ch. 5 right now (I'm also finishing up an update for AGTF, which took 5evr), so please understand if I'm a little late with it next week. I'm gonna do my best for all of you!!! ٩(•̤̀ᵕ•̤́๑)૭✧


	6. A Light in the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for all this kind feedback!! You guys are awesome!!! ♡〜٩(^▿^)۶〜♡ 
> 
> **Important Spoiler Tags:** non-con drug use (continued), canon-typical violence, allusions to hallucinations, allusions to suicide, non-con self-harm...and the hug we all deserve.

Bruce didn't think he'd ever driven that fast in his life, despite not being behind the wheel of his usual car of choice. He was just glad he left the emergency signal for the Batcave's door on his phone. John had started to stir as the car stopped, and Bruce rushed to get out and open the passenger door as the Batcave's lights sprung to life.

"John?"

John, half-conscious with a growing lump on the back of his head, blinked anxiously back at Bruce from the worn car seat. His pupils were still heavily dilated. "B-Bruce?" His voice was weary, scratchy, so like the night they came to blows that Bruce had to pause and swallow his heart.

"It's me, buddy, it's me," Bruce soothed, but it had the opposite effect.

"You-you're..." He looked frightened all of the sudden, shrinking back into the seat and smacking the plastic center console. "You're not here!" He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking as he dug his nails into white skin. "You're not real!"

"John, I'm right here."

"NO!" He gave a choking gasp. "You're _not real_ ," he spat, glaring at the spaces between his fingers as he tried to shrink away from the world. "Bruce isn't...!" He looked so guilty, suddenly, trembling and holding his hands in front of his face like there was something on them. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. "I didn't... I didn't..."

"John, listen...you're hallucinating."

"I couldn't... Not in a million years! Not...not _him…"_

Bruce knelt down next to the car seat, feeling his heart twist as he took in the pain written everywhere, the guilt and disbelief and _terror_ shining all over John's face. It might have been a stupid thing to do, but it was all he could - he pulled his glove off and slowly slipped his hand into John's, squeezing slightly and watching his eyes soften with realization as Bruce wriggled their pinkies to hook together.

"I'm right here, John. Promise."

John turned slightly to him, tears rolling down his face and fresh drops threatening to fall. "You're not... You're _here?"_

"Yes. Dr. Crane hit you with some kind of hallucinatory toxin."

John seemed to be listening, even though he didn't look like he entirely understood.

"I need to make you an antidote. Can you stand?"

John seemed to reach some kind of epiphany, his eyes somewhat alight even as his voice and body shook, despite the growl in his voice. "If you're _Bruce,"_ he glared, "If you're _really_ Bruce - then who's _Batman?"_

"I... I was," he corrected. John had been disappointed that Bruce had given up Batman, but he seemed to like the idea that they hung up their vigilantism together, forced into doing so in different ways. Bruce wasn't convinced that John thought Batman was gone.

Then again, Bruce knew _he_ wasn't, either.

John sighed, frowning slightly as he looked at the roof of the stolen Honda. "Everything's looking all squiggly."

"Right - sorry," Bruce muttered his apology, feeling foolish at even asking a trembling, hallucinating man if he could move properly. "I'll carry you, okay?" He worked his arm under John's shaking knees and his other grasped the man's waist, firmly ignoring the impulse to cling onto John and not let go. _Definitely_ ignoring the soft noise John made and the way it made his heart jump.

John was holding onto himself as he let Bruce carry him, perhaps worried that he wasn't moving at all, or perhaps coherent enough to be worried about hurting Bruce. Bruce carried John to the medical table, still covered with the plain white sheet he had thrown over it like the majority of the things still in the Batcave.

"Hang on." Bruce hiked up a knee to hold John's legs up as he used that hand to pull the sheet off, a light cloud of dust flying into the air.

"Are the flowers still standing?" John croaked unsteadily, a bit of a smile returning to his long, pale face.

"No," Bruce laid him down gently, a smile tugging at his lips again, "the flower's lying down, now."

John laughed, a sort of shaky chortle that should've been louder and more even. It didn't sound right.

"John, I need to take a blood sample, okay?"

Acidic green pools looked up at him, shining and dazed all at once. "Oh Bruce, you can take whatever you want."

The Batcomputer would fire to life for the second time that day with only a push of a button, but Bruce was reluctant to leave John's side for too long. He managed to find the necessary medical supplies relatively quickly, but John was babbling between shaky breaths, and he found it hard to concentrate when John's voice echoed so well in the cave.

"My courage, my brain, my sanity," John continued slowly in his scraggly voice, his eyes shut once more, "my soul...my heart..."

Bruce felt an ache in his chest as he prepped the empty syringe. He had to concentrate and find a vein.

"I don't know what I'd do if you broke that," John muttered, his eyes fluttering open and looking directly at Bruce; he wasn't coherent enough to really see him, but it didn't matter when Bruce felt like the world was slowing down around him.

Truthfully, Bruce felt like rejecting John would have been the biggest mistake of his entire life. It undoubtedly would've set them so far apart that there would be no way of going back, and Bruce wasn't sure if he could live with himself if it happened.

It felt strange, but somehow John was the only one who ever understood and accepted everything there was in Bruce, and Bruce knew and saw too much of everything that was John to just walk away. They’d got thrown into each other’s lives and left impressions that felt like they would never wear away. And at the point they were at now, friendship mended, truths spilled, and trust somehow still tangible despite everything, Bruce felt sure that both of them would break completely if he so much as _considered_ leaving John alone.

"I wouldn't," Bruce answered breathlessly, hoping beyond anything that even in his current state John could understand him.

John, though, was staring at something beyond Bruce. "You're still so handsome," he sighed slowly, "even like this..."

Bruce ignored the drug-induced attempt at flattery and the mild heat blossoming under his cheeks as he pinned John's arm down to take a sample of blood. He hoped it wouldn't take long for the Batcomputer to find what it was made of and work on creating an antidote. “I’ll make this quick.”

John still twitched, forcing Bruce to hold his elbow in a death-grip, which made John very quiet even as the rest of him shook like a leaf, but it was over in seconds. He pressed the bandage against the insertion point firmly, and John let out a rattling breath.

"Would you kill me?" he whispered. "If it came down to it?"

Bruce didn't know what hurt worse:  the fact that John thought Bruce would even _consider_ killing him for anything, or that John looked so _hopeless_ right then.

"No, John. Never."

John's eyes weren't quite focused.

"I'll be back in a moment."

"NO!" John reached out, grabbing onto his arm like he was a life-raft. "Don't, _please-"_

"I need to put this sample in the computer and get it analyzed..."

"Don't leave me!" John begged, voice so similar to how it had been over the phone when he was asking for help that Bruce almost broke down right there.

It was then that Bruce regretted not having any ramps in the cave, let alone a wheeling medical bed. Carrying him to the other side could do more harm than good. “I promise, I’m not leaving for good, John.” Bruce put his hand atop the one grasping desperately at his arm, running his thumb over John’s knuckles. “Just stay here; I’ll be right back. You can watch me the whole time.”

John seemed to understand somewhat, letting his grip slack enough for Bruce to slide away and head for the Batcomputer. He felt guilty enough, with that brokenhearted face watching him walk away, but his side chose to twinge, making him reach for the large scar by reflex.

Even after the initial boot-up, the blood analysis was quick - Bruce mentally thanked Lucius for the umpteenth time, rest his soul - but the chemical compound was taking time to find an antidote.

Well, John did say Crane had said that the toxin was special. It seemed to be able to cause vivid hallucinations, increased anxiety, and adrenaline rushes - it was a nightmare cocktail to be sure. It might wear off, if the person could hold out long enough... But John had been given two doses in just over a full day. Bruce was impressed he managed to get through it all as it was, let alone remain unconscious through some of it and be at least somewhat competent up to now.

Bruce turned to look at the medical area across the cave, seeing John’s face turned towards him, his arm stretched out like he was waiting for Bruce to get closer so he could reach him better. He’d never looked so anxious before. It made Bruce want to go back over and stay there. Just to reassure him that things would be alright.

Instead, they were separated by a desperate need for an antidote and Bruce’s strong willpower. He took turns watching the progress bar move and keeping his eyes on John. His breathing had seemed to speed up…

He’d only looked away for a second, seeing the bar jump from 86% to 91%, and when he looked back at the medical table, John was up and shakily standing, audible gasps almost echoing off the walls.

“John, don’t-”

Bruce already stood to stop him, but John seemed determined – he stepped quickly, unsteadily, and Bruce found his own feet hitting the heavy metal plates of the floor when John stumbled, clutching onto the railing at the top of the stairs as he fell to his knees. 

“ _John!”_

There was an awful kind of choked sob as John curled in on himself halfway, his fingers winding in his hair as his eyes went wide.

Bruce was close, he only had twelve steps and then he’d be there –

The Batcomputer gave a light beep. “PROCESS COMPLETE.”

Bruce stopped, his foot on the bottom stair, turning to look at the dispenser underneath the enormous monitor – the little light was green.

A piercing scream bounced off the walls of the cave, boring into Bruce’s skull. John was digging his fingers into his hair, crying against the railing, looking as if he’d witnessed some unimaginable horror.

“SHUT UP!” John shouted as if Bruce had been talking to him, “SHUT UP SHUT UP _SHUT UP_ -”

Bruce knew better than to try and grab him. He just hoped that John wouldn’t try to hit his head against anything or try and roll over the rail.

The dispensary had never felt so far away before. He kicked himself for not putting John down in a chair near it, but he thought it would be better for him to lie down. Bruce grabbed the full syringe tube from the machine and almost slammed it into the needle-gun sitting next to it, twisting on a fresh hollow needle and pulling the trigger until he saw a drop of liquid bead at the end, feeling every nerve he had sit on edge.

A cluster of bats screeched and scattered as John let out another wail.

“I DIDN’T! I _DIDN’T!”_

He needed to hurry. John felt so far, pushing himself too hard against the railing, feet sliding as he tried to get away from whatever voice was talking to him.

“John, _stop_!”

“HE’S HERE! _RIGHT HERE!_ I _DIDN’T-”_

There was no way around it - he’d have to pin John down.

With the prepped needle-gun in hand, Bruce threw his weight into pushing John backwards and holding him down with his bodyweight, leaning an arm across his chest to get an opening at the puncture wound Dr. Crane had already made on John’s neck. John paused only for a second before trying to thrash, using his hands to push against Bruce’s ribs, digging in much harder than they should be able.

Bruce winced and grit his teeth through the pain, sticking the needle into John’s neck and straining to keep them both still until all the liquid from the dispenser was gone.

John was breathing heavily, his eyes still dilated and wet as his face twisted into a grimace. “Let _go!”_

“The antidote needs to kick in, John; I can’t let you hurt yourself.” It was hard to concentrate when John was pounding his fists at his back. The bruises would hurt worse tomorrow, but Bruce felt like he deserved every single one for even getting them to this point. The punches came slower and fresh tears traced over the partially dried tracks on John’s cheeks.

John gave a sob as he slapped Bruce’s rib and let his hand dig into the fabric of Bruce’s jacket. “Why can’t you just let me _go?”_

He’d asked himself that months ago, when he was putting the sheet over Joker’s display case in the Batcave.

It would’ve been easy to just ignore John while he was locked away in Arkham. Bruce could’ve put the whole Joker experience aside and filed it away as a mistake that wouldn’t happen again. Bruce had brought nothing but pain and complications that a mentally ill man didn’t need, and there he was, keeping the matching equipment of the wannabe-hero carefully displayed on little pegs rather than throwing them back in the GCPD evidence locker or tossing them into scrap. He could’ve put anything in Joker’s case – the ‘get well’ card John had given him at the funeral, the tube of lipstick that had fallen on the floor of the Batmobile at some point that night – and it would have been out of sight and out of mind.

But he _couldn’t_. Bruce couldn’t just walk away from everything that had happened:  not from _Batman’s_ past, not from his _own_ , and not from the man who had reached out to him like he was a lifeline in Gotham’s noisy darkness.

Batman, Bruce, John, Joker – he couldn’t bury them and forget. It was too complicated to let one go and keep the other. They were all threads stitched together in some indecipherable pattern, bound together despite the strain and the guilt and the mess that stretched and stained them. They were what made him go to Arkham and see John to begin with, and what made him keep going back, and what brought John there at all, seeming to wind tighter together at every instance.

But all that was too much to say to a man still working through a hallucinogenic drug, so Bruce put it the only way he could:

“Because I _care_ about you, John.”

John gave a sniffle, breathing slower, looking away with a somber, dreamy sort of expression. “I don’t deserve that,” he muttered.

John seemed to unwind as he blinked slower, and Bruce pulled away into a kneeling position, forcing away the thought that the cool air felt unnatural on the spots John’s hands had been. A quick check of John’s wrist told him that his pulse was slowing, thus the antidote was kicking in.

John blinked up at him once more before drifting off to unconsciousness.

As Bruce gently carried John back to the medical bed, he shoved away the thought of the glowing affection in that last glance, telling himself that it was just the drugs.

He’d cleaned up a few of the bloody scratches on John’s scalp before letting himself linger on the strands of green he brushed aside, too concentrated on the task at hand to think about how soft they were or why his hands wanted to loiter there in the first place.

*~*~*~*~*

Bruce hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep.

One minute he’d been sitting in a chair next to the medical bed, remote keyboard in hand as he tried to find any trace of Dr. Crane’s car or cell phone from across the cave, and the next he was blinking up at the stalactites, laying back against the headrest with no concept of how long he’d been sitting like that for.

 _John_.

Bruce suddenly never felt more awake as he swiveled to look at the empty medical bed behind him. The Batcave’s lights were still on and the Batcomputer only displayed the rotating silver bat-symbol of his screensaver. The thirty-year-old Honda on the car pad below was still sitting there, just as he’d left it.

But to the left of that, Bruce saw one of the trophy cases’ sheets fluttering, and there was a great swoop in his stomach as he stood, his tongue feeling heavy at the sight of the head of dark green hair in the distance.

John was peeking under the sheet at first, as if just wanting to glimpse what might have been underneath, and then pushed it aside like a curtain, the Joker’s possessions shining in the light for the first time in months.

Bruce wasn’t sure what to expect as he started to descend the steps, metal clanging under his work boots, but he didn’t expect _nothing_.

John just stood there, shoulders slacked and head tilted slightly, the hand holding up the sheet like he would dive under it any minute. It was like he couldn’t hear him, even though he was a foot away.

“John?”

The slim man pulled himself away with a start, turning around halfway with wide eyes and a hurried _Bruce!_ Expression turning at the sight of him, John went from mildly panicked to nervous, an unsure smile on his lips. “I, uh, would’ve woken you, but… You looked like you hadn’t slept in a _week.”_ John’s eyes darted over Bruce’s, as if double-checking the bags that were undoubtedly underneath them.

Bruce could’ve asked the obvious question of whether or not John was alright, or how long he’d been awake for, or just launch into an explanation about what the cases were, but…

Bruce couldn’t find the words. John was _standing_ there, messy green hair and bright eyes anyone could get lost in, and it was like the cave didn’t seem so dark, nor their situation so strange, nor the future so important.

It was natural, then, that every lonely hour that accumulated in Bruce’s mind for so long overrode his natural habit of keeping to himself and moved his legs and arms forward for him, as swift and precise as the caped crusader had always been, until Bruce had his arms wrapped around John’s in a desperate hug. 

John gave a funny little noise of surprise, but it barely took two seconds before he returned the gesture, pulling Bruce even closer with a gentle hum.

For a moment, Bruce thought of nothing. The tension in his muscles was ebbing away. The scent of the old car seats and faded laundry detergent clung to John underneath something reminiscent of limes. Warmth seemed to spread everywhere and Bruce couldn’t deny it felt like something was finally right.

But he didn’t deserve to linger and bask in it. Certainly not with John, who he had hurt more than anyone else. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, pulling away carefully.

“Sorry? For _what_?” John laughed, letting Bruce slide away but seeming to edge into the little gap between them. “You broke me out of Arkham, gave me an antidote for Crane’s meds, brought me to _the_ Batcave – and you even stole a car to do it!” John gave a short giggle, his pupils seeming to dilate slightly as he smiled softly up at Bruce with something like reverence. “You’re my _hero_ , Bruce.”

It was not what Bruce wanted to hear, despite feeling the weight that seemed to always press on his shoulders lift away. He didn’t want to be praised. He’d helped John, yes, but he let two unpredictable people get away in order to do it. He’d potentially put a hundred other lives and more on the line just to selfishly save _one_ on his own, and he let that one get hurt in the process to begin with.

“I’m not.”

John narrowed his eyes, leaning forward as if to size Bruce up. “Excuse _me_ , Wayne - if _I_ say you’re a hero, you _are_ ,” he emphasized with a jab of his index finger to Bruce’s chest. “No take-backs,” he added.

“You got _drugged_ because of me,” Bruce countered, crossing his arms. “I let Crane and Jackie Lant _get away_.”

John’s mouth turned to a flat line. “It’s not like I haven’t been dosed up _before_ , Bruce,” he grumbled back with a shrug, “At least I knew what to expect.” His expression shifted, turning to something more hopeful. “Besides, knowing you, you won’t let them get away for _long_.”

John had always had a strange feeling about him. It wasn’t his illness or his knowing gaze or the way he made green hair and bleached-white skin look good – it was the way he somehow made Bruce feel like he could be… _open_. While in the Pact, Bruce resisted the temptation to be completely honest with him, but in the end he knew that John had seen through that anyway. John could understand people on a level Bruce couldn’t quite fathom, and maybe it was that that made Bruce want to be upfront, or maybe it was John’s tendency to be so open about his thoughts and emotions. Maybe it was just John as a _whole_ that made Bruce want to let the man see down to his core.

But in any case, it was just the two of them now, and they had pinky-swore each other a second time that they wouldn’t keep any more secrets, Bruce’s age-old habit be damned.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Bruce confessed. “We need to find Crane. But I can’t… I don’t _want_ to put on the suit again.”

“Which is _clearly_ why we’re standing around in Batman’s home base,” John joked, grinning up at him with a chortle.

“I had to synthesize an antidote for you, and the Batcomputer was the only thing capable of doing that,” Bruce explained seriously, “I don’t mind using Batman’s _tools_ , John – it doesn’t mean I’m putting the cowl back on.” Just saying it made the idea a little firmer, and it was as if his sense of direction had improved. He knew what they _could_ do. “Dr. Crane didn’t keep his formula at the asylum, so he must have a stash of it somewhere… We need to find it and any other records he kept of his experiments so we can drop them to the right people. Miss Lant’s threats towards him are concerning, but we can’t exactly do a citizen’s arrest if she hasn’t _done_ anything.”

John seemed to be hanging on to his every word, a calculating look coming over his features. “Hmm… So you’ll be doing it the _Bruce Wayne_ way, huh?” He then beamed, rocking back on his heels as he clapped his hands together. _“That_ will be interesting! Count me in!”

“I was _already_ counting you in.”

“You shouldn’t have assumed I’d say _yes_ , Bruce,” John chided with a knowing look and a wag of his index finger, “Consent is important in any relationship.”

Bruce felt embarrassment creep up his cheeks. Somehow, John always managed to catch him off balance, but the word ‘consent’ definitely put Bruce in mind of other things he did _not_ need to think about right then. “…sorry. You’re right. You… _do_ want to help me, though, right?”

“Absolutely! B. and J. – together again! With a costume change, of course,” John grinned and shrugged. “Though I’m surprised you didn’t keep _that_ in my little showcase,” he commented with a slightly malicious undertone, “Didn’t want us to _completely_ match, Bruce?”

“…I couldn’t take _every_ thing from the evidence locker,” Bruce admitted.

“But you _wanted_ to?” John raised a brow, a dark grin stretching across his face as he seemed to read Bruce’s thought - _of course I did_. “I _knew_ you cared,” he purred, something flashing in the bright greens of his eyes, “I would’ve done the same for you, buddy.”

Bruce didn’t doubt that for a second, but he’d bet his estate that John would’ve stolen _everything_ from the GCPD’s locker.

“ _Ooh_ , can I take my grappling gun?” John asked, clasping his hands in front of him. “Since we’re going after Crane together…”

It would be a good idea to bring a grapple along, but Bruce didn’t like the potential risk of losing Joker’s. He could suggest one of his own, since he had several spares…

“Pretty please?” John begged in a low voice, stooping slightly as if he was trying to look up at Bruce through his short green eyelashes. “With sugar on top?”

Bruce sighed. Whether he was Joker or John, it _was_ his. “Alright. It’d be a good idea to bring my old one, too.”

John beamed and rushed to push the sheet out of the way, but he gingerly lifted the flashy grappling gun off its display hooks and left the sheet half-open as he whirled around, nothing short of excitement exuding from him. “So, when do we move out?”

Bruce dug his phone out of his pocket, glancing down at the lockscreen for half a second before realizing it was five A.M. on a _Monday_.

His mind instantly ran through his schedule – three meetings, two of which could be easily rescheduled. The third… He might have to do a video conference from the mansion. As much as he wanted to trust John on his own, he knew that Arkham was going to realize he was missing sooner rather than later, and there would no doubt be a warrant out for his recapture. More than likely, they would have assumed he had escaped, and Wayne Manor was probably going to be put under watch, being the first place they would think John would flee too. There was a high chance Wayne Enterprises would be given the head’s up, too…

“We’ll have to wait a while,” Bruce replied with a frown, pocketing his phone as John began to pout. “I’m going to need to call Wayne Enterprises and tell them I won’t be coming in; I have to send a drone out to see if Crane’s condo is clear before we do anything as it is. I’ve only got so much feedback from the traffic cameras.” Not to mention, John’s Arkham uniform was a dead giveaway. “And…you should change. I _might_ have something that fits you upstairs…”

“The _cave_ has an _upstairs?”_

“John, we’re underneath my _house.”_

John’s arched brows rose to his seaweed-colored hairline. “You mean… The _Batcave_ is _Wayne Manor’s_ _basement?!”_ His grin stretched wide and his eyes sparkled anew as he gave a short laugh. “Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any better!” He gave an exaggerated spread of his arms, like he was proclaiming it to an audience, and Bruce couldn’t help but smile a bit in return. “Can I get a tour?”

“It would take too long to go through the whole manor, John,” Bruce said, stepping aside so they could walk to the stairs on the other end of the cave together, “but I think I can manage about half.”

There was a definite _risk_ in having John work with him again, but…

Even if he had the option not to, he would’ve wanted to try again any day.

It would be _different_ this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s shorter than I wanted it to be for you guys, but…I’m honestly glad I finished this much before it was too late! And this was a good spot to cut off for next time. 
> 
> Originally, I had John being wheeled around the cave on a proper medical bed so they didn’t have to be apart. Then, when re-watching the let’s plays I saved, I noticed that the bench/bed Bruce always wakes up on in the medical area is rooted to the floor! Downside: you guys missed out on the much sweeter version where I had them hold hands the _whooole_ time. Upside: the realism was perfect fuel for angsty longing, insight, and hurt/comfort! I also originally had John being right there when Bruce woke up (it didn’t get very far, that was where I got stuck), but I thought it was way more interesting to have John wander around and peek under the sheets covering the cave’s stuff. You _know_ he would.
> 
> Oh, and I’ve been uploading this story on [ my tumblr](https://fordarkisthesuede.tumblr.com), for those who aren’t in the know! I figured it would help get the word out there, but I don’t think weeknights are the best upload days there… I’m thinkin’ Saturday at this point. ( •᷄ὤ•᷅)
> 
> Next time on _AtBoM_ , there’s a serious conversation the pair have been meaning to have for ages, the beginnings of the Hunt for Crane, and…a new costume to show off?! (*ﾟOﾟ*) Tune in next week, same bat-story, same fanfic-archive!


	7. Your Old Dark House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They say a wizard is never late, but always arrives when they mean to. Unfortunately, I'm not a wizard - I'm late, and it's just because I didn't finish on time. I need a bit more time to write everything while I can, so updates will be Saturdays from here on!
> 
> Thanks again to all of your continuous support, you lovely lovely people!!! I won't let you guys down! (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

"You know, I'm surprised you didn't take the Batmobile last night," John commented as they rode the elevator up to the billiard room. He held his hands behind his back, loosely clasping his wrist with one hand, while standing completely straight and exuding an aura of unbelieving excitement. He smiled over at Bruce, light shining brilliantly in his eyes, looking every bit as charming as he had at the Stacked Deck.

"I thought it would be less conspicuous if I rode along in Jackie's car," Bruce offered with a light shrug. "I thought she was on our side..."

"I only ever saw her when she was tagging along in sessions now and then," John started smoothly, "but that was a woman whose hamster wheels were _always_ turning. Just never quite knew what they were turning _for..."_

The elevator came to a halt, and Bruce pushed the section of wall open.

The parlor was barely lit and only slightly warmer than the cave. Bruce let John get out first, making sure the clock's wall shut firmly.

Bruce wanted to just make a bee-line for the door. He didn't want to look at the picture hanging above the mantle. His parents' kind eyes as they posed with him, the younger, innocent child that had no clue as to what they really did with their lives. The picture was taken two months before their assassination in Crime Alley, and Bruce sometimes wondered why his father didn't look more like the manic crime lord he turned out to be.

He couldn't find it in him to take it down. It was part of him, and it felt strange not to have their picture somewhere in the house, despite what they had done. It used to be a constant reminder to prevent senseless deaths like theirs. Then it became a reminder to be better than his family's name.

John seemed to scan the room, his excitement not waning in the slightest. "Wow, I _knew_ it would be fancy, but... Still! Even have a family portrait!"

Bruce had a hard enough time looking at it. He certainly didn't want to talk about it, much less with the person his parents' would have undoubtedly disapproved of having in their home the most. "You haven't seen anything yet," Bruce said with as much charm as he could muster.

"Then lead the way, _Lord of the Manor."_ John gestured his arms at the door, a small grin stretched on his pale face.

The foyer had strips of light coming in through the tall window above the door.

"Ha! It looks just like the pictures! Just, uh, darker."

Bruce felt his spirits lift at that. He figured it wouldn't hurt to switch on the light at the top of the stairs.

John winced and rubbed his eyes, but still seemed to instantly soak up the visuals. "Talk about _classy_. Just looking at all this makes me want to rob you," he joked, laughing a bit. "Just a little, though."

Just as Bruce suspected, John stood out in stark contrast to the color palette of the mansion. It was nice, seeing something so bright and lively in the otherwise empty space.

Bruce did agree to give a bit of a tour, despite what they had to do, and he figured the best way to get them both to move was to just start talking from the top. "So... Main kitchen's to the right of the stairs, in the back, dining room's through the second door across the hall..."

"Woah, woah - _main_ kitchen? You have little sub-kitchens?" John grinned over, inching towards the staircase.

"No, just one other kitchen, on the far side of the house."

"Why does one guy need two kitchens?"

"It was either meant for long-term guests or live-in servants... I'm honestly not sure. There's a lot of rooms I don't bother going into."

"Ooh, let me guess!" John deliberately covered his eyes with one hand and posed with the other pointing up in the air. "I bet...you have a theater, and...a gym...and a conservatory!"

Bruce let out a slight chortle. "Got it in one. Though I _do_ use the gym."

John pulled his hand away from his face, grinning triumphantly back at him. "I knew it! Don't think I haven't noticed you've been working out," he added with a look that Bruce felt was rather... _flirtatious_. "Miss the nightly excursions on rooftops?"

The usual awkwardness that came with John's honesty bubbled up; it was worse knowing that John had been completely right. Since giving up Batman, Bruce tended to work out until exhaustion, if just to give his mind the illusion that he was working like normal.

"Let's head upstairs - there's at least five closets for us to go through."

John laughed to himself as he started to ascend the stairs. "No need to feel embarrassed, Bruce," he said, humor weaved into his tone, "I get it."

"You're the only one who does."

John put a hand over his chest as he gave the billionaire a soft look. "Aww, Bruce! I'm touched..." He tore his gaze away to continue taking in the decor. "I hope the feeling's mutual."

Bruce wasn't sure what to say to that.

"Say, your Dad... He seems like he was the same height as you. Was he the same size as you, too? It's hard to tell from the pictures."

"I'm not sure," the former-vigilante answered honestly. "Alfred and I donated a lot of my parents' stuff years ago. There's only so much left."

"You have a sewing machine?"

 _Did_ he? Alfred was a man of many talents, including mending... He couldn't remember ever seeing a machine. "I know Alfred has a kit, but I don't think he has a machine."

"Hmm... No worries! As long as I can get my hands on some Stitch Witchery, we'll be good to go."

Was...was he planning on fixing something to _fit_ him?

Bruce thought about telling him they didn't have time for that, but the reality was that they did. "Master bedroom's on the right."

"We're starting with your closet?"

"Might as well. Alfred's is off-limits."

"Naturally."

John's face lit up as they went through the bedroom's double-doors. Bruce didn't think there would be much to get excited about at first.

But then he realized he was letting John into the second most personal space he had. Few people had seen inside that room, and those that spent the night usually didn't find their way back inside afterward. Even fewer had the same observation skills John had.

It was strange, though, that John seemed to bypass everything in favor of the walk-in closet.

Or maybe he was being sneaky about where he was looking. It was hard to tell with him sometimes. It was why Bruce hadn't realized how much a "watcher" he really was until their conversation in the Fun House.

John immediately set upon going through the suits. "Let's see, black, dark blue, black, black - ooh, there's _gray_! Your spring color of choice!" He teased, grinning at him as he played with the sleeve between his fingers. "Have any suits you hate?"

Bruce blinked. "You can take whatever one you want, John. I'll get another."

John pursed his lips. "I'd feel bad if I took your favorite."

He was tempted to say that his favorite was downstairs, but it wasn't quite true. Or maybe he didn't want it to be true. "In that case, anything but the pinstriped black in the middle."

"...do you really trust me?" John asked carefully, flicking through the rack of carefully-hung suits. "Enough to do this again...? Work with you...?"

"Of course I do."

"Even though I messed things up?"

Bruce knew he had to choose his words carefully. John already felt - and looked - guilty enough. "We both messed up, John."

"But you didn't kill anyone."

He felt his heart squeeze at the thought and crossed his arms. "You've...come a long way since then." Bruce watched John's face carefully, trying to read him; his expression had softened. "Are you worried you're going to do it again?"

"Do you think _Tiffany_ will?" He asked suddenly, turning towards him with a piercing, accusatory stare. "Or is it just _me?"_

"John -"

"No," he interrupted, his voice raised. "I want the _truth_ , Bruce. Why did you let _her_ go and put _me_ back in Arkham?"

Bruce felt like he was aching all over. He hated seeing John like this. He hated feeling the stomach-gnawing guilt that came with it. But the only thing he could do was to be honest with him.

"It was the best way I knew how to help her. Putting her in Black Gate would have only made more problems for the Fox's. And...Arkham was the _only_ way I knew I could help you." Bruce let everything come out, feeling like he was laying himself bare, and hoped to hell that John was seeing. "I didn't _want_ to put you back in there. I had no choice." He breathed in, hating the angry hurt on full display on John's face. "I _know_ what you two have done. But I also know you're trying to be _better._ "

John sighed, his lean body slacking halfway. "You had several months to tell me, Bruce. Lying by omission still counts as breaking our promise." He pouted slightly, glancing at the taupe suit he had been handling, and an unnerving smile broke on his face. "So you're going to make it up to me."

Bruce wasn't quite sure how to take that.

"I want one of your Batarangs," John continued in a low tone that send a slight shiver up Bruce's spine.

Well... He _did_ know how to use it. Neither of them knew what would happen outside, either. It could come in handy. And they did promise not to keep secrets, and he had a point, no matter how much Bruce could have protested that he had been _going_ to tell him. Bruce supposed there was no harm in paying a penalty so simple. "...sure, that's fair."

"To _keep."_

"I'm not letting you take it back to Arkham."

"Of course not," John replied silkily, "You're going to hold onto it for me."

It was hard to guess exactly what John was thinking, asking for something like that. One Batarang for putting the issue aside. He supposed John would never be able to get the rest of the Jokerrangs out of policy custody... "Fine. But just _one_."

John gave a mischievous grin as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a familiar sharpened bat-shaped tool. "Oh, good! That means I only have to give one of these back."

The vigilante's eyebrows rose to his hairline, staring at the Batarang just being held out to him like a playing card.

"I know I should've asked, but like I said, you looked like you hadn't slept in a week, buddy," John said with a playful shrug. "Sorry."

Bruce nearly snatched the Batarang back, glaring at the green-haired man.

John pulled the taupe suit off the hanger and folded it neatly over his arm. "I'm gonna need a couple of other things, too, now that I think about it..."

*~*~*~*~*

Bruce didn't know why he always ended back up in the parlor. Maybe it drew him in with it's natural coziness, despite the judgmental stares of his parent's picture. Maybe it was because it was the in-between for both sides of his life. _(Used to be_ , he reminded himself.)

He'd left John on his own upstairs, who focused intently on his sewing project after a lengthy discussion about what Bruce had to order for him if he was going to step outside at all. At least it was easy enough for the warehouse to drone-deliver later.

But that had been an hour ago. Occasionally, he would hear movement from upstairs as John rooted around in the other four closets that might have held something for him to use. It had been silent for a little too long.

All Bruce had for noise for the past half-hour was the little blips from the drone he was controlling through the mobile gear he brought up from the cave. He'd flown around the city, checking up on Jackie's apartment _(empty)_ , the whereabouts of her car _(unknown)_ , and trying to find any sign of Crane's car _(none)_ as he virtually sat outside the doctor's condo.

There had been no sign of life there - not even a twitch in the curtains, all of which were drawn shut. There wasn't so much as a desk lamp on inside, and at six-thirty in the morning, Gotham's penchant for cloud cover made it pretty dark. It was unlikely that Jonathan Crane was home, and Bruce was struggling to think of where he could have gone or what he was planning to do.

Arkham's server hadn't shown any key-card use for either him or Jackie Lant since the night before. Trying to track their phones came up as empty as they had the night before - likely switched off, but hopefully not dumped. Jackie Lant at least had a couple of social media accounts Bruce could cobble together information from; she had friends in the area, so she might have stayed the night at one of their places.

Bruce flew the miniature drone around the back of the condo again, parking it in the corner of the patio next to a cluster of potted plants by the tall fence. He and John would either have to pick the lock on the front door or jump the fences to break in the back way. For right now, he'd keep an eye on the back to see if there was any movement through the windows there...

A loud buzzing sound would have made Bruce jump if he were anyone else but himself, but it did shake him out of his thoughts. The gate's intercom was activated; he rushed to get to the panel by the front door and take a peek at the video, grateful that they couldn't see him.

Detective Bullock's round face glared at him from the driver's side of his unmarked Crown Victoria.

Bruce had expected as much. He didn't think Bullock would ever forget being punched in the face, even if it had been for a good reason at the time. He breathed in, willing himself to sound as just-woken-up as possible before pressing the call-button. "Yes?"

"Detective Bullock of Gotham City Police Department, Wayne. Open up."

Bruce feigned surprise as best he could. "Oh, sure - I'll be right down."

He pushed the button for the gate and rushed to strip and pull on the bathrobe he had thrown on the billiard table an hour ago, praying silently that John wouldn't pick now to make any indications he was in the house.

He waited a minute, knowing he shouldn't appear too rushed to see anyone, and took as many even breaths as he could before opening the door, the crisp autumn air almost whipping over his exposed skin.

Detective Bullock was standing there with two armed officers, the Crown Victoria parked crooked in front of the GCPD squad car in the path.

"Good morning, Detective - officers," he added with a smile in their direction. "How may I help you?"

Harvey Bullock grimaced. "You'll do us a favor and cut the crap," he growled. "Your pal John Doe escaped Arkham Asylum sometime last night. You seen him?"

Bruce rose his eyebrows and let his shoulders slump. "He _escaped?"_ He took a deliberate pause, pretending to search Harvey's face. "No... No, I haven't." (Bruce had blinked. He hoped Harvey wouldn't notice.)

"Right. Here's how it's gonna go, rich boy - we figure he's gonna try to get in touch with you, and seeing as how he's a homicidal lunatic-" Bruce felt himself frown before he could really stop the reflex - "we have to make sure we have someone around to stop your ass from getting sliced up. So officers Flemmot and Derming here will be keeping an eye on your place. We already have a couple guys situated on Wayne Tower, in case he tries there."

It was a perfectly sensible thing to do, despite it being a matter of public knowledge that Bruce took an active interest in Arkham's reformation and John's well-being after the Joker incident. Tabloids had run themselves ragged trying to dig up whatever they could in the first few months of Bruce's visits to the asylum, but Bruce had the sense of mind to pay the more talkative orderlies off before things would get too out of hand. He didn't care that people knew they were friends, considering what they knew already, but he didn't want any wild accusations to start flying. There was a couple of baseless theories in the trashiest rag about potential love affairs between the two, but one call from Bruce's lawyer cleared that up before anyone could say 'Wayne'.

Still, Bruce knew he had to feign some ignorance, if just to keep up appearances, so he put his hands in his pockets like he was being thoughtful. "You really think he'd try to go to Wayne Tower?"

"It's not a matter of what _I_ think, moneybags." Bruce almost winced at the nickname. "It's a matter of what the _commissioner_ thinks. And what he thinks is that either Doe or you are gonna do something stupid, given your guys' history. So you listen to me," Bullock growled, stepping up to get in Bruce's face, "If you so much as get a _glimpse_ of your freaky little boy-toy while you're held up in either one of your ivory towers, you get us on the line asap. Else you're gonna be in shit so deep you'll need a _snorkel_. Got it?"

Bruce felt the urge to break the detective's nose for a second time. He could practically hear the satisfying crack it made. "You didn't have to put it that way," he answered, clenching his fist to try and quell the desire to punch, "but _yes_ , I understand."

"Good." Bullock started to retreat, turning to the two officers waiting at the base of the steps. "You two, start sweeping the grounds, and keep a close eye on Wayne, you got me? I want to know if he so much as leans out the window. Oh, and Wayne?" He shot up a look from the bottom step as he shoved a cigarette into his mouth. "You got a small package," he added with a smirk, pointing to the medium-sized box sitting by unopened side of the door. Bruce rolled his eyes and picked it up, deciding not to dignify the distasteful jab with a response.

"I think I'll work from _home_ today," he said aloud as he closed the door on the police officers now going their own ways, knowing that they heard him well enough.  

God, what he needed now was coffee. He went through his mental catalogue of the kitchen as he went, wondering if he had anything John would actually like, and thought about whether or not he should go looking for him.

Bruce stepped through the kitchen door and found that the idea was completely unnecessary - John was leaning against the counter island, fully-dressed in the modified taupe suit taken from Bruce's closet, seeming to watch the coffeemaker on the opposing counter. Bruce gently placed the box on the counter nearest him.

As if he sensed his presence, John turned his head, and immediately lit up. " _There_ you are! Your eggs are getting cold!"

Bruce shot a glance at the table tucked away by the darkened window. Two plates, both covered with a different set of plates to keep them warm. Mugs were already sitting there, too, as well as the carton of half-and-half, the sugar bowl, two jars of jam (did he _have_ two kinds? Bruce only remembered strawberry in the fridge...), and the maple syrup for some reason.

"How did you do this so fast?"

"Bruce, I've been down here for twenty minutes," John said with a somewhat flat look as he turned around to lean against the counter on his elbows. "You looked busy, so I was going to wait and get you, but then the fuzz showed up and... I figured you'd find me eventually."

"...what would you have done if they'd come in?"

"They can't come in without a warrant and they don't have...you know, that thing. What is it - uh, probable clause?"

"Probable _cause_."

"Yeah, that!" John emphasized with a snap of his fingers. "I knew you wouldn't let them in since I was here anyway, so there was only a _mild_ panic attack for a couple of minutes back there."

Bruce felt almost like he was having one of those right now. The kitchen windows had their rolling shades drawn, but there was still a slim chance they could be seen through the sides... And the fact that John had crept around downstairs without a sound was as startling as it was impressive.

He really was full of surprises...

"Well, just...don't sit by the window," Bruce said lamely. "There's going to be two officers patrolling the grounds."

John let out a giggle. "Good thing they don't know how I escaped in the first place," he said teasingly, his green eyes twinkling up at Bruce. "They'd _neeever_ guess."

"Hopefully they never will."

"I doubt it," John hand-waved, standing straight as the coffee machine beeped, "You're Gotham's golden boy, Bruce. You could visit me every single day and they'd _still_ doubt you'd actually break me out. You could probably tell them that you were Batman and they'd never believe you..."

"I don't know about that... Avesta was sharp enough to pin Batman's identity on me after one meeting with me. _She's_ a Gothamite, and I don't think she doubted it for an instant."

"That's different," John scoffed, moving the coffeepot to the table, giving Bruce a full view of the seamless job John had done on the suit.

It was... _perfect_ , actually.

It accentuated his shoulders and waistline, leaving just enough room for the grappling gun at his back, and made a slim fit on his legs; he'd even found a dark green tie somewhere that complimented his hair.

John seemed to notice him staring (he was not _staring,_ he was _observing;_ he was not letting himself linger on any particular area, certainly not his swan-like neck, exposed due to not buttoning up the shirt all the way...) and turned to beam at him, posing his hands on his hips. "What do you think?"

Bruce shoved down the honest flattering compliments that popped up in his head that he would've said unabashedly with anyone else. Still, he didn't want to say anything rude just to cover his own feelings, either.

"I think I should hire you as my tailor," Bruce said genuinely, "You look great."

John looked as if Bruce had said he was handsomest thing he'd ever seen. "Thanks! I'm impressed with myself, actually, since I had limited supplies to work with..." Bruce almost felt like as if he had passed some kind of test with him, somehow...

He took the seat next to him at the table and puzzled over how strangely domestic this entire scenario was, despite the threats just walking around outside. He knew they had time, considering Crane and Lant were nowhere to be found, but there was always the nagging feeling in the back of his head that they had to move.

"So what were you up to?" John asked, smearing a heaping knife-full of strawberry jam on his toast.

"I was using the drones to try and find Crane. I haven't been able to find his or Jackie Lant's cars, so I decided to part the drone outside of Crane's condo for now. He doesn't seem to be home." He watched as John picked up the syrup and squirted it in streaks all over his plate, covering the eggs and half the toast like it was the only way to eat them.

"Crane drives a Lexus, doesn't he?" John asked with a forkful of syrup-coated egg poised to be eaten. "He seems like the type..."

"Yes, actually. I haven't been able to see any sign of it on traffic cameras, either."

"He probably parked it and swapped the plates with something else," John advised, pointing another bite at Bruce's face to emphasize his point. "Our glorified intern is probably still driving her crummy little sedan around."

He honestly couldn't imagine Jackie Lant as the type to steal a car. She seemed to be the kind to hide it. He wondered if she wasn't just going to try and continue life as normal today, considering John would've gone after Crane right away regardless of whether or not Bruce Wayne had a darker side. "...why do you think she wanted to kill him?" Bruce asked, sipping his coffee. (John had apparently opted for the dark roast rather than the French in the cupboard. Strange, considering John was now pouring quite a bit of half-and-half into his cup...)

The green-haired man just hummed in response, a calculating look coming over his face. "If I were the betting kind of guy," he started, "I'd say she was aiming to steal from him, first."

"You think she's after his formula?"

"Maybe," John replied with a secretive sort of smile. "But Crane was using it on us for a reason, Bruce. All those notes about how we reacted under extreme stress, seeing our worst fears manifested before our eyes by a nasty chemical reaction..." John's face twisted into something serious. "Crane might have had to kill his way in, but it doesn't change the fact that people pay a lot of attention to him."

Bruce thought back to the strange figures sitting on Crane's office shelf. "How did you know he's killed people?"

John looked down at his plate with a reminiscent expression. "I had some sessions with Dr. Kessler before I got released. He had that little souvenir floating pen on his desk since day one." John stabbed the yolk with his fork, watching the yellow goop leak out like a bloody wound. "I liked him."

"I'm sorry."

"They never found either of their bodies, did they? Kessler and his replacement, whatever her name was... Just empty homes and not so much as a goodbye note from either of them," John commented, meeting Bruce's gaze again with a dry smile.

"No. He and Dr. Norris are still on the missing persons list." Bruce let coffee wash out the bad taste that came along with the words. "I'm sure that Jackie Lant is going to go after Crane. That look on her face when she left..."

"You'll have to tell me," John pointed out with a wider smile.

"Sorry," Bruce said reflexively, remembering the punch he had thrown at the side of John's head. "She was...determined. Whatever Crane's planning to do, she might know what it is already. I wouldn't put it past her to already have some of his formula, too."

John leaned on his elbow, propping his head in his slim, pale hand to observe Bruce with a familiar, playful smile on his lips. "Hmm, decisions, decisions... Are we going to look into the home of the disturbed doctor or the treacherous trainee this morning?"

Bruce thought back to Crane's empty condo. He had no idea how long it would stay empty; and he wouldn't be surprised if Crane kept his formula - or at least an earlier version of it - at his house.

Then again, Jackie Lant's apartment was also temporarily deserted. There was no guarantee that she wouldn't try to go back to work. She might have a few answers scattered around, too, both for herself and Crane's actions.

But Crane's face when he had walked out... He'd been so _assured_ of himself. Like he already knew what he was going to do next, despite there being no way he could have predicted John's escape and Bruce's intrusion on his office.

"Crane might have kept to himself, but his house will give us the best chance at finding out what he's up to. And if he tries to go back while we're there, we might be able to stop him prematurely."

"Good choice," John grinned, passing him the blackcurrant jam. Bruce didn't even know he _had_ that kind... It must have been in the back of the cupboard. "But I wouldn't recommend going on an empty stomach."

Bruce felt his cheeks burn slightly as he started in on his own food, John watching him happily. He had a feeling he would watch the whole time if left to his own. "Your stuff came, by the way," he said with a nod towards the package sitting on the counter.

"Ooh, better get started, then!" John practically downed the rest of his own drink. "See you back in the billiard room, Bruce!"

With that, he rushed out of the kitchen, pausing at the door to peek out and see if he had a clear shot outside or not, and left Bruce on his own in the large, empty kitchen.

*~*~*~*~*

Bruce felt like he was waiting for a date to finish freshening up before they went out on the town. He'd passed the time by sending off the email notifications that he wouldn't be coming into the office and rescheduling his meetings. He'd still have one to do at home that he wouldn't be able to get out of or push aside, but that wasn't until the afternoon. He had lots of time before then.

He wished he had kept the Batmobile parked in the cave, now. He already had to take one of his other car's plates off so they could drive the stolen Honda around without being randomly looked up. Hopefully no one would notice. Bruce had already changed into plain street clothes and hadn't bothered shaving.

"Sorry for the wait, Brucie."

For a moment, it looked like a well-dressed stranger had broken into Wayne Manor. With his hair dyed temporarily dark brown and his face covered in a more naturally-toned foundation, the only thing that gave John away was the bright greens of his eyes.

He seemed to have applied the works:  nude lipstick, natural smokey eye-shadow, eyebrow pencil, and even brown mascara. He was completely unrecognizable to any stranger.

He'd clearly found something else in one of the closets upstairs, too. Bruce almost did a double-take - he was pretty sure that was his father's light trench-coat over Bruce's taupe suit. The matching hat was being twirled around on John's hand.

(He _did_ tell him he could take whatever he wanted. It was too late to go back on that now... Bruce would just have to deal with it. It wasn't like he'd seen it that often when his father was alive, either.)

"What do you think? I kind of disassociated a bit towards the end while applying everything. It feels like I'm looking at a me from another world..."

It struck Bruce that this was very likely what John had looked like before he had woken up in Arkham, before he'd had whatever accident had bleached his skin and warped his D.N.A. to dye his hair green. It was rather handsome, if Bruce was being completely honest, but it didn't feel right. It was as if John was supposed to always have his unnatural color palette.

"You...definitely look different," Bruce answered.

John looked at his (very new) shoes. "It's weird, isn't it."

"No - well, _yes,_  but only because I know you," Bruce fumbled, not wanting to see John hurt. "You look good. Just...not your _usual_ good."

That brought a smile back, at least. "Thanks, Bruce. I needed that." He clapped his hands together, standing completely straight. "Well! I'm ready to go when you are!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched Mask of the Phantasm a while back... I always forget how attractive pre-Joker Jack Napier is! I really wanted to make John's new "Joker" outfit match Napier's from there, but with that beige trench-coat+hat combo other Jokers sometimes wears on top. And of course John would be spotted instantly if he went out without any "normal" makeup on... Which is too bad, considering how drop-dead _gorgeous_ Villian!Joker is. Just imagine Vigilante!Joker with Villain!Joker's face in Jack Napier's MotP outfit...! ⸌̷̻( ᷇ॢॢ ᷆◍)⸌̷̻♡⃛
> 
> Also, again, the new update will be next Saturday! I can't WAIT to start in on Crane's house! It's gonna be so much fun! ꒰(@｀꒳´)꒱  
> // **Edit, 6/9:** UPDATE WILL TAKE PLACE SATURDAY, 6/16. Sorry for the delay, I promise next chapter will be worth the wait!//
> 
> (P.S. - Should 'batarang' be capitalized...? I capitalize 'Jokerrang' because it feels right...)


	8. Behind Closed Doors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, everyone. This, uh, still counts as a Saturday update, right? Right.
> 
> So first off, thank you so much for your continuous support! I love you guys!! Secondly, I have to give a _SUPER SPECIAL_ thanks to [littlebigdalek](https://littlebigdalek.tumblr.com) on tumblr, who kindly drew [this amazing piece of fanart for Chapter 6](https://littlebigdalek.tumblr.com/post/174820847017/littlebigdalek-john-that-looks-like-a-handsome)! Look at John, he's so cute!!! I love it so much!!! I never expected to get fanart for anything!!!!! (I'm totally going to put it on my wall!)
> 
>  **Important Spoiler Tags:** death (mention), drugs (mention), suicide (mention)

There was something strange about driving another person’s car. Bruce didn’t pay it much mind last night, since he’d been concentrating on just getting John to the Batcave as he ran through several different plans of what exactly he would do, but now that he was driving it again, hands gripping the thin steering wheel with the only pair of breathable gloves he owned, he realized how foreign it felt. Like he was intruding on a stranger’s private life.

Bruce stole a glance over at passenger seat – John was staring out the clear window, probably enjoying seeing the city streets pass them by. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable (Bruce had long gotten used to being alone while he drove) but somehow he wanted to say something distracting.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask – how did you get that security guard’s I.D.?”

“Hm? Oh, that. I just knocked into a guard. One little grab was all it took.”

“That’s impressive,” Bruce offered honestly, “It took me a long time to be comfortable working with slight-of-hand stuff.”

John gave a little laugh. “Well, I’ve had ten years to practice!” He went quiet for a moment, still staring out the glass, but his face was at least visible now. “You know, I think this is _Jerry’s_ car.”

“Jerry?”

John opened the glove compartment. “Ah- _ha!_ Binoculars!” John pulled them out – they were tiny, but Bruce recognized them. He had an identical pair at the house, perfect for when his drone’s cameras were down or when his mask’s visors were acting up. How did someone at Arkham drive a thirty-year-old car but afford high-end binoculars? “Jerry’s a twitcher,” John answered without prompt, “Of course the guy can’t see too much around here… I used to wonder if he wasn’t just using it as an excuse to spy on people,” he added with a humored little grin. “Until I heard him talking to the other staff, anyway. He’s the reason half of Arkham call Crane ‘Scarecrow’ behind his back.”

Bruce recalled one of the lab technicians making a passing reference to Crane like that. “Let me guess – Crane scared the birds outside the asylum away?”

“Bruce, you beat me to the punchline!” John laughed, playfully slapping Bruce’s arm. “But it’s not just a _one-time thing_ , Brucie. Birds avoid the guy like he’s got the Avian Flu! I once saw a whole murder scatter the moment he stepped out of his car!” John looked thoughtful, his grin unchanging. “I suppose it’s also because he’s _really_ skinny; he might as well be stuffed with straw! Though, if it weren’t for that _nasty_ personality, I’d say he’d still be pretty dreamy…” John trailed off with a scowl.

“He’s not _that_ good looking,” Bruce retorted, trying to keep his eyes on the building numbers.

“Don’t tell me you’re _jealous_ ,” John teased, turning towards him with a spark in his gaze.

“Of course not,” he answered more defensively than he wanted to. “There’s nothing to be jealous of – he’s a psychopath with a good face and no muscle mass or empathy.”

“Oh, Bruce, there’s no need to feel threatened.” John leaned his elbow on the center console between their chairs to get a closer look at him; Bruce avoided looking over at him, despite the urge to. “You know you’re the most stunning sight in Gotham.”

Bruce thought he should’ve been used to John’s flattery by now, but even after months of similar comments it still made something inside him squirm with an awkward warmth he didn’t entirely dislike. He’d heard similar things for years from Gotham’s socialites and his lifetime of dates and (almost always short-term) relationships, but coming from John it always threw him for a loop. Maybe because he knew he didn’t deserve it.

Just as Bruce was going to politely brush the comment off as always, there was a crack like plastic snapping, and both the cheap armrest and John knocked right into him with a yelp.

Bruce swerved to stay in his lane, despite no one else being in the road with him yet; that was _definitely_ a hand on his lower thigh. Heat seeped right through his jeans and seemed to creep up a lot farther than it should.

John pushed himself up, using Bruce as leverage, and busied himself trying to fix the center console. “Oh gosh, sorry, Bruce, i-it just _broke!_ It, uh, doesn’t want to stay up, either,” he fumbled, readjusting the plastic armrest. “I’ll, just, um, lean it towards me…”

It apparently had been far too long since Bruce had that sort of human contact. He tried his best to shove the feeling down and bury it deep, like the rest of the ones he knew he shouldn’t have, but it was quickly morphing into the idea of what would have happened if that hand had slid upwards instead. It would be so dangerous to keep driving as it kept moving towards the middle of Bruce’s legs, but he knew he _would_ have, even if John grasped him fully and gave a gentle squeeze…

“Uh, are you okay?”

He was definitely not, but John’s voice shook him out of the little runaway fantasy. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He was used to telling this lie; he’d been doing it for years. The twinge of guilt still sat in his stomach anyway, as it always did when he lied to John. “Really.”

John was watching him, but let out a little sigh of defeat and returned to leaning against the window. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s alright, John. At least it’s not _my_ car.”

John gave a chortle, and Bruce felt himself smile back a bit.

It only lasted a few seconds – they’d arrived at Crane’s condo. Bruce slowed down, eying the windows on the opposite side of the street. A few were lit up, but only one didn’t have any kind of curtain or blind drawn, and it was a little bit down the lane. He had to choose between picking the lock on the front door (it would take a bit of time, but it would be easiest, and the Wayne brand security system had a failsafe code he could punch in by the door), or trying to break in from the backyard, which would require hopping fences.

There was no guarantee that someone (or someone’s dog) wouldn’t be out in the back, and if someone happened to see them in the front, they could always act like they were returning home or waiting around.

Bruce parked between an unmarked sedan and an old Jaguar and checked the backyard drone’s camera on his tablet one last time – it was still sitting where he had landed it, and nothing seemed to be out of place since he’d last looked. (Now that he thought of it, he still had a few small explosive projectile sitting in it. If push came to shove, he could always fire one as a distraction.)

“So, we’re picking the lock and acting natural, right?” John asked, only the corner of his mouth pulled up in amusement.

“Exactly. If anyone sees us, we act like we’re just coming back.”

John stared. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to act like we were just _leaving?_ I mean, I doubt his neighbors know more about his sexuality than anyone at Arkham does, but I bet they’ve seen him come out of his own house…”

It took Bruce a second, but he realized by John’s widening smile that he had not only made a good point, but also a _pun_. Despite the complex feeling he had at the prospect of pretending they were leaving after a night of sex (and with _Crane_ of all people), he let out a small snort. “That’s a _terrible_ joke.”

“But you’re still smiling at it!” John pointed, looking pleased.

Bruce did a quick check of the review mirror; no one was around to see them. “Come on,” Bruce prompted as he opened the car door, sliding the tablet into the small of his back, held firm by the belt in his worn jeans.

The _619_ above Crane’s door shone slightly in the orange light of the streetlamp. Bruce checked the windows once more, the nagging thought that the doctor just _might_ be home refusing to really leave. The windows were so dark, despite the streaks of orange reflecting off the surfaces.

Bruce felt like he was in the middle of a horror story. He expected the dead orange leaves from the tree nearby to whistle past them in the wind, drifting to lay on the fake pumpkin sitting on the porch of the house next door like even _nature_ wanted to avoid the place.

Instead, all Bruce felt was the simple chill of the October morning on his face as he bent over the doorknob on the stoop, doing his best to pick the deadbolt with his kit as John stood next to him with his hands in his jacket pockets.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” John began, “All these people, going through their morning routines, eating and sleeping with their partners or families like there’s nothing at all that could hurt them… Like they don’t _live_ here…” Bruce switched picks, taking the brief moment to look at John staring at the condos across the street with a darkly humored expression. “Like they don’t live across the street from a _monster_ … Everything’s just peachy for them.”

Bruce lost the will to concentrate.

“I wish I knew what that was like…” He finished with a little _heh_.

It was at times like these that Bruce felt like he truly understood why John had likened them to two threads in the same stitch. He’d had similar thoughts in his darkest times, and even in some of his better ones. It was more a fierce protectiveness that charged it, but he couldn’t deny to himself that he, too, jealously longed for that blissful ignorance some nights, where the bachelor Bruce Wayne wasn’t just a facade and he had something more to live for than just his drive to fix the city. Things were a bit different, now.

Bruce put his hand on John’s shoulder. He felt like he should do more, but didn’t want to dwell on what the other options for comforting him were. John’s green eyes met his with a sad sort of ache. “You’ll get there. I know you will.”

John gave the slightest smile in return, knowing sympathy seeping through his gaze. “Right back at ya, buddy.”

Finding himself pinned once more under John’s inherent knowledge of Bruce’s inner workings, the billionaire refocused his efforts back on the lock. The deadbolt gave way with a bit more prodding, but apparently Crane wasn’t in the habit of locking the bottom handle; the door opened with a simple twist.

Bruce went in first, keeping his eyes open for anything remotely suspicious as he punched in the failsafe code on the security system’s keypad. (November 6th, the one day he felt he’d never truly forget.) The backlight of the security system went from yellow to blue, and Bruce breathed a little easier. Crane thankfully had not installed a camera system anywhere. Or, at least one that hooked up to the security system…

The curtains seemed to be blocking out all the light coming in from the street. Figuring it was safe enough to turn on a light, he kept trying the switches until the light above the kitchen illuminated the place partway. John carefully closed the door behind them, even turning the deadbolt shut. (Good thinking; if Crane came home, they would at least have a bit of a warning.)

Pine-scented cleaner and something vaguely vanilla filled the air. It was a simple open floorplan, with carpeted stairs near the door and the living room and kitchen stretching the way to the back of the condo with light orange walls. The furniture was all carved dark wood and creamy faux-leather, sitting on the off-white carpet that looked like it had been worn in to the ground. One couch, one armchair, and one rather elegantly carved coffee table with a well-used candelabra on top sat in front of the open fireplace; a very old clock perched on a black doily was the only thing on the mantelpiece, the loud ticking telling its age more than the simple shape or the old numbers on the face. There was a single painting on the wall – a large abstract piece of red lines with harsh, fast strokes done in various shades, like the artist couldn’t paint fast enough.

“Hey Bruce, can I borrow your phone?”

“Why?”

“So I can take a picture,” John said with a look like it was incredibly obvious. “If we move something, we’ll know where it goes.”

 _Ah_ … Bruce was glad he hadn’t just outright asked if John was going to take a selfie. “Good thinking. But let’s try _not_ to move anything,” Bruce advised, sliding over his smartphone after he’d put it in airplane mode. John stood next to him and held it out at arm’s length to capture the whole room, but just as Bruce was going to move away, he switched the camera mode over and grabbed Bruce’s shoulder.

“Aaand one of us! Smile!”

Bruce decided not to fight down the smile tugging at his lips. (John’s enthusiasm was infectious, even now.) He could backup the photo to a more secure location later; he doubted anyone was trying to snoop through his camera roll right _now_. The light flashed, and Bruce saw John’s smile widen a little further as he pulled away.

“Ooh, that’s a keeper,” John commented before sliding the phone into his pocket. “It’s still weird to see my face like this, but… Can you sneak me a print later?”

“We’ll see.”

“O-kay, then, I’ll go check the kitchen,” John said helpfully, already walking towards it as he donned his own gloves. There wasn’t much to see on the surface – outside of a very fake owl sitting on the fridge, it was just a few basic appliances on the counters and two rustic-looking stools sitting under the breakfast bar.

Bruce decided to examine the large bookshelf in-between the two rooms, hoping he’d find something useful, or else get into Crane’s head a little further.

There were a few books on the history of demonology, witchcraft, and old religions. A curious collection, considering Crane came off like a practical, if highly immoral, man of science…

There was one on the history of Gotham. Bruce picked it up, running through his mental catalog of his own library. He had this one, but an earlier edition. Crane had bookmarked a page, so he decided to read it:

> _“The Court of Owls, founded by Gotham’s original pioneers, was believed to hold their meetings in an underground chamber beneath the city. The remaining records of these founders’ meetings with their ‘court’ prove the group to be a cult with a paranoid, criminal streak - they often wrote of a ‘dark god’ trying to infiltrate their city through various human guises, and their method of fighting it was to kidnap and train children from young ages (known as ‘talons’) to fight and kill anyone who showed signs the ‘owls’ felt were evil enough to be the ‘dark god’. In one recorded meeting, it’s mentioned that they felt that the children’s innocence would make the god’s power weaker, as the adults assigned to the assassinations would often become corrupt or insane after a period of time._
> 
> _“The Court apparently began to fall to disgrace when they began to sacrifice their own members in a further attempt to appease the dark god “who came closer to the inner sanctum with every passing day”, as the record of members and Gotham’s census shows a steep decline in population, but neighboring towns showed an incline. When the ‘talons’ unwittingly killed the beloved mayor of a neighboring city on the ‘owls’ command, the remaining members of Court of Owls fled Gotham, fearing that they had been working for the ‘dark god’ all along, while all but one ‘owl’ committed suicide in the underground chamber in an attempt to ‘cleanse themselves of their sins’. The last surviving ‘owl’, the then-mayor of Gotham, Vincent Wolf, was arrested alongside the ‘talons’ responsible, and was reported to have swallowed his own tongue a month later.”_

Bruce remembered reading the story about the cult as a child, having snuck the book away from his father’s library so he could read under the covers. His father had always disapproved of Bruce reading material far above his age, but Bruce had always been too curious; he recalled lying awake that night, the images of the underground rooms and sacrifices by people in crude owl masks and cloaks flashing in his mind’s eye, the idea of people stealing children to teach them to murder tearing him away from sleep with a dizzying excitement.

It had been both terrifying and interesting back then. Now it only brought disgust and disturbed shudders down Bruce’s back.

“Hey, John? Did you ever hear anyone talk about the Court of Owls?”

John pulled away from the cupboard he was snooping through. “Hmm… Only _once_ , I think. It was after _Lady_ Vicki put that huge hole in the floor. No one had seen those catacombs until then; I kinda remember one of the orderlies from downstairs blabbing about the history of the place.” John rocked far back on his heels, holding the doorknobs on the cabinet to stretch himself out. “Why?”

“Crane bookmarked a mention of it.”

“Well, it was a crazy cult, right? All motivated by the fear of some god? Sounds right up Crane’s alley…”

“Right…” Bruce put the book back on the shelf and resumed looking.

There was an entire shelf dedicated to Stephen King, and another holding nothing but numerous collective works of horror stories. Essentials of H.P. Lovecraft, Masters of Horror, Sleepy Hollow and Other Tales… The paper spines were all lovingly worn and the hardbacks still had their sleeves, with the exception of a leather-bound The Raven and Other Writings _._

 _“Yuuuck,”_ John groaned from the open fridge. “What kind of freak likes _Squirt?”_ He turned slightly to the door. “And… _catsup?_ I thought it was supposed to be _ketchup.”_

“Tom-mate-o, tom-a-to,” Bruce commented with a slight shrug.

“Ha ha ha!”

Outside of about twenty stand-alone horror novels (most of which Bruce had never heard of), the rest of the immense bookcase was taken up by CDs:  there were things he recognized, like _Siouxsie Sioux_ , _Nick Cave_ , and _Eels_ , as well as some classic compositions, but there were a lot of film soundtracks and country albums Bruce hadn’t heard of. (The covers suggested they weren’t the upbeat square-dance kind of country that made Bruce want to cringe, but they were definitely something he wasn’t familiar with.) Bruce glanced at the kitchen, spying an older CD player sitting on the only exposed shelf in the corner.

John was flipping through the calendar on the wall. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Crane had to get out more…”

“Is there anything on it?”

“Nothing useful, but I found this note under the plastic owl on top of the fridge,” he said, holding up a green piece of paper:   _P.I. @ 10:30PM, Tues_ was scribbled in pen. “Why have a calendar if you’re not going to mark down when you’re meeting your own private investigator?”

“He must have been worried someone was going to see it.”

John raised a skeptical brow. _“Who?_ I’m pretty sure he doesn’t entertain. Outside of some coffee syrups and a surprising amount of peanut brittle in the cupboard, the guy’s got nothing but the complete _basics_ around here,” John gestured to the rather bare rooms, his expression shifting into something a bit more thoughtful. “He must be looking into something _really_ shady.”

Bruce recalled the moment of interest that flashed on Crane’s face when the doctor had mentioned having a spot open on his couch for him. He didn’t like the thought that Crane was trying to look into _him,_ but it was a possibility, and Bruce didn’t like to leave potentials off the table. The only reason why it could happen was because John was Crane’s patient…

John peeked into a door for a few seconds, then shut it with a bored expression. “Just a bathroom. I swear, the doc’s got _no_ taste in decor…” He opened the door next to it, and the smell of earth and musk wafted into Bruce’s nose. John felt on the wall for a switch, but apparently there was nothing; Bruce stepped over to him, seeing only a dark stairwell with the glimmer of a gas tank at the bottom. _“Tch_ , figures… Well, shall we descend into the depths of darkness together, Brucie?”

Bruce felt his mouth twitch at that. “Might as well.”

“Good thing I brought a light, then,” he commented cheerfully, pulling out a heavy Maglite from one his long coat pockets. (Was it the one from Bruce’s kitchen? Or the one from the guest bedroom…?) “Please save all your questions ‘til the end of the tour,” John joked in a mimic of a cheerful female tour guide.

John seemed to be watching his step carefully; Bruce was keeping his eyes and ears open for any sign of a trap, ready to pull John away at a moment’s notice. He could still feel his heart jumping at the memory of the booby-trapped stairs in the Vales’ house…

John flicked the light switch sitting by the bottom of the stairs, causing the long florescent bulbs to flicker to life with a dull buzz – unlike the rest of the house, the basement looked rather full. Jonathan Crane clearly used it as his lab; there was a long workbench with distilling equipment that looked like it hadn’t quite been cleaned out, and a trash can next to it whose lid was barely holding on. Across from it was several long tables with large planter boxes sitting below bright white lights.

Two boxes held only recently-turned earth, but the third had a few mushrooms. Bruce narrowed his eyes – he didn’t doubt they were the hallucinogenic type. He’d seen ones like them before on a couple of his drug raids. He grabbed a plastic zip-lock bag from his back pocket and took a broken piece of mushroom lying in the dirt of the planter.

John snapped a picture before he started examining the cabinets. “Crane’s got a full chemistry set down here…”

If Bruce remembered his research correctly, Crane had minored in chemistry during his college days. “See if you can find any samples of his formula. I’m going to look through the binder above the washing machine.”

There was only one white binder on the shelf with the laundry soap, but it was definitely about Crane’s toxin. Bruce wished he could just carry the whole thing out with him, but he settled for taking pictures with his tablet, reading through on the way. It acted more like a diary than anything, with lots of previous equations crossed out in harsh blocks of blue ink, like Crane had been furious with himself. (That, or very thorough, but the depth of the indents on the page suggested frustration to Bruce.) It got more apparent as pages went on, with notes like ‘STILL not right!!’ and ‘IGNORE - NO REACTION’ almost covering the entire page in black marker. There was a bit of paper that suggested Crane had torn a page out, and Bruce figured it had to have been the formula page he had gotten right. He doubted Crane would catalogue all his failures beforehand, only to resort to tearing out _one_.

A few pages had the status of the growing process of the mushrooms and their distillation written in places. The last couple of pages had nothing but these sorts of notes...

> _The mushrooms are growing livelier every day. I actually found myself humming to them earlier. They do say music is supposed to make plants grow hardier, but I’ve never tried it before. I feel ridiculous like this…_
> 
> _I decided to play some Saint-Saëns to the mushrooms while I worked on distilling the oldest one. I wonder if the music choice will induce more horrifying pictures in my patient’s minds? - 9/14:  Perhaps it’s not just a silly notion after all. Even the little sock puppet attached to my patient’s hand today seemed to be experiencing worse hallucinations than before…_
> 
> _My old friend sold me a rare plant, saying it would be exactly what I was looking for. Trust is so hard to come by these days, but I trust them with that knowledge, at least. The care instructions they provided for me, though, are so outlandish! Surely these little flowers can’t be that fickle…_
> 
> _Such tiny flowers produce such big results! A.M.’s session today was so satisfying that I’m almost ready to declare my Fear Toxin a complete success… -9/28:  A.M. is dead! He was so frightened out of his mind he clawed himself to death after we returned him to his cell! What fantastic results!_
> 
> _The flowers are starting to wilt. I decided to play music near them non-stop and increase their intake of that ridiculously-expensive food…_
> 
> _The flowers are dying. I don’t understand. How can one step in the instructions be the key to their survival? I must salvage what I can and make as much of my little potion as possible..._
> 
> _The flowers are all gone, but my Fear Toxin is finally complete. J.D.’s last session was a perfect example of what fear can push people to do. He’s been awfully hardy, but I finally got him to break. Thank you, little flowers; your deaths are not in vain…_

“Bruuuce,” John called, poking Bruce’s side and almost making Bruce jump. “You in there, buddy?”

He was, but he didn’t want to be. Disgust kept squirming around in his stomach and the fierce protectiveness over others he usually associated with the Bat was coming to a head. Just _looking_ at John – makeup or no – made him want to wring Crane’s neck. He wanted to ask how anyone could treat the people that were supposed to be receiving help so completely cruelly, but knowing his own father had likely had similar thoughts about his experiments with insanity-inducing drugs, he felt there wasn’t any sort of realistic answer he could take.

“Yeah, sorry,” Bruce answered, sounding drained.

“It’s okay, I get really focused, too, sometimes. I found his stash,” John said, holding up the little bottle of FDR-26. “This one’s kinda old, but it’s the newest one in there.”

Bruce eyed it. It was one generation behind the fake sample he had taken home with him. Was it worth the risk? He supposed he might be able to look at the levels in a small dose of it versus the sample John had injected into him, and see what the difference was. He might still be able to salvage it and create more antidote, if they needed it.

“It’ll have to do.” Bruce gingerly plucked it from John’s outstretched fingers and pocketed it. “Good work.”

“You find anything in there?” He asked, pointing to the open binder.

“I think he took his working formula with him, but the only thing I really found out is that he got some special plants to combine with the mushrooms from an ‘old friend’.”

John raised a painted brow. “And I’m guessing they’re the secret ingredient?”

“They _were_. Apparently they all died.”

John looked away, like he had seen something in the upper corner of his vision, but the look only last a moment. _“Ooh!_ I know!” John hurried to the trash can and started to root around in it before Bruce could warn him against breathing in anything in there; thankfully, he didn’t take long. “Ta-daaa!” A single dead flower, dried and brownish-yellow, was held up in his gloved hand. “Bruce,” he started, walking towards him with a softer look in his wide grin, “will you accept this dead, withered mystery-flower?”

“Aw, John, you shouldn’t have,” Bruce replied sarcastically, feeling a smile of his own struggle through as he placed the dead plant as carefully as he could in another plastic bag. With any luck, there’d be pollen he could analyze. “I don’t think there’s anything else to find down here.”

“Yeah, I didn’t see any secret panels or giant, door-concealing clocks or anything,” John joked with a sly smirk. “Let’s see where our doctor lays his fat head at night…”

“Put the trash can lid back, first.”

“Oh, _heh,_ right…”

The ascend upstairs was quiet, having double-checked all the lights were off and all the doors were closed. Bruce kept darting his eyes towards the front door, wary that someone would come in at any minute. He took deeper breaths and told himself that they could escape out the back if they had to; plus, John was carrying his grappling gun, so that could make for a faster getaway…

“You know, I wonder if Crane was ever in _witness protection_ or something,” John pondered aloud, looking around the empty hallway as he flipped the nearest switch for a bit of light. “I haven’t seen a single photo _anywhere.”_

“The message board of his former students I looked into mentioned how he didn’t like having his picture taken; I’ve only ever seen two, and both were staff pictures.”

“Hmm… Maybe he had a different face at one point?”

“I actually considered that, but he doesn’t have any plastic surgery listed on his medical records.” Bruce opened the nearest door, which turned out to be the bedroom. “I think he just likes his privacy.”

John took a picture and scoffed before poking his head in the nearby closet. A normal amount of button-down shirts and decent slacks hung on hangers, but Bruce spotted a fair amount of jeans and flannel shirts in the mix. “Yeah, _right_. Mr. I-was-published-in-the-biggest-psychology-journals likes _privacy_. I know you haven’t spent much time with him, Bruce, but that guy _wants_ people to know how amazingly _smart_ he is. People like that aren’t very _private_.”

Bruce poked around in the nightstand. Nothing interesting except a library book that looked to be another horror novel. “Then why do _you_ think he doesn’t like to been seen on camera?”

John whirled around to face him, clearly frustrated. _“Ugh_ , that’s what I’m trying to figure _out,_ Bruce!”

There was a single photo on the dresser in front of the window, and both Bruce and John seemed to spot it at the same time. An old wooden frame showed a young boy standing between two excited adults in front of a haunted house. It was surely a young Jonathan with his parents. He actually looked somewhat happy; there was a spark of life in his small eyes.

“God, he looks just like them,” Bruce murmured, taking in the picture’s faces.

In the glass’ reflection, Bruce could see John’s eyes dart over the picture, then to Bruce.

“Maybe he doesn’t like the way he looks,” John offered up, staring at Bruce with a probing look. “People have always passed you off as just a rich pretty-boy, haven’t they?”

Bruce put the photo back just where it had been before, not quite getting where John was going. “Pretty much. Until I graduated with honors, anyway.” He snapped a picture of the framed photo with his tablet, feeling like there might be something significant in it.

 _“Exactly_. Pretty faces are always the first thing that gets attention. Crane probably doesn’t want people to just drool over his _face…”_ John looked hard back at the photograph. “Especially since he really _does_ look like a perfect mash-up of his parents. I bet they’re dead.”

Bruce winced at the casual way John said it, but he’d had the same thought. You put your beloved relatives’ pictures in places where you could see them often, and as this was the only spot in the house with any photo, and very close to where he slept, it clearly meant something special to Crane. “Let’s check elsewhere.”

“Right a’ Rooney,” John said slightly higher pitch, as if he were imitating someone.

The hallway closet and bathroom yielded nothing, and one look into the medicine cabinet told Bruce that Crane wasn’t on any kind of medication.

The only other room in the condo was the office, and when John opened it and turned on the light, Bruce didn’t blame him for looking shell-shocked.

It was almost like a different person was living in it. Where the rest of the house was simply furnished and fairly bare of any kind of decor, the office was _filled_ with shelves of DVDs, VHS tapes, and books, with a computer squirreled away in the corner, sitting next to a wall of masks hanging on display.

There were even a few movie posters for horror films, the biggest of which sat right above the waist-high shelf holding what appeared to be all of Crane’s work-related materials. It was as if one of the seasonal novelty stores scattered around the city bred with an old video rental place.

“‘The Walking Scarecrow’? Man, that’s _got_ to be a stinker,” John grumbled with a wince at the old poster, which featured hand-drawn art of a looming, dark figure on a cross in a field of wheat. “I’ve never seen _any_ of these actor’s names before.”

Bruce looked up and down the shelves. Nothing but horror movies, documentaries on the making of said movies, and true-crime shows or hour-long specials showcasing criminal behavior. There was a small television with a built-in VCR sitting on top of one shelf by the wall of masks; it made Bruce feel old just looking at it.

“Let’s see: _Psychology Now_ , _Modern Psyche_ , yada yada yada… Huh, Cinema’s Greatest Monsters, what a surprise...”

Bruce looked over at the wall of masks. “He certainly has quite a collection…”

John turned, still kneeling on the floor. “I think I’ve seen a few of those before. The weird bat one looks familiar.”

Bruce looked at the grotesque, hairless bat-face. It had a small nameplate under it – _Man-Bat, 2015_. “A movie, you think?”

“…huh, there’s one missing…”

Bruce looked up, and sure enough, there was an empty hook on the top row. He couldn’t read the plate. “You still have those binoculars?”

“Sure. Here you go, pal-o’-mine,” John said with a playful smile, plopping the small binoculars into Bruce’s hand.

Bruce focused in on the plate:  _The Walking Scarecrow, Reproduction - J. Crane._

“He took the _Scarecrow_ mask.”

John’s eyes widened, the smile slipping off his face. “Oh… That’s…” He darted a look at the binders on the shelf. “I’ve seen that one before.”

“You _have?”_

“Yeah…” John trailed off, a vulnerable, thoughtful look crossing his features, like he was trying to remember something horrible. “The last session I had with him… He had it with him. I…think he _wore_ it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I promised you guys a Saturday update, and that means we cut off here! But no fear, Crane’s house was a lot to take in, and we’ll see a bit of it next week, too. ;) In fact, Chapter 8 will pick up right where we leave off, here! 
> 
> I couldn't find a precise date for the Wayne's death, so I kind of just picked one. And yes, I am TOTALLY messing with the Court’s lore here, because this is the TellTale universe and anything goes! It was fun to pull bits and pieces from the Court’s usual backstory and warp them into something new! It’s somewhat inspired by Silent Hill, so I made a nod to it with ‘Vincent Wolf’, a combination of ‘Vincent Smith’ and ‘Lenard Wolf’ from my SH3, my favorite in the series. Crane’s world is horror and fear, so I think he’d love stuff about ancient people’s fears and how it drove them to do certain things, which influenced me showing that by pulling the Court stuff out of nowhere. He probably has a book on the Salem Witch Trials somewhere, too. :T
> 
> Can you tell I used to be a big horror buff? Horror's in my blood, but not as much as it was in my teenage years. I used my old obsession as fuel for Crane’s hobby, and did my best to blend “minimalist doctor” with “lowkey Goth” for his decorating choices. I looked at a lot of the Halloween/autumn blogs I follow to get in the mood for writing this chapter, but as a side-effect, I’m now filled with the desire to redecorate everything in sight with a lot of candles and dark gauze as I munch on candy and watch Carpenter’s _Halloween_. Alas, it’s still summer, and I don’t have enough black gauzy fabric… 
> 
> See you next Saturday! (Pinkie-promise!)


	9. Fresh Old Wounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, everybody, but trust me, it's totally worth it. ;3c
> 
>  **Important Spoiler Tags:** gun violence, memory loss (mention)

Bruce felt like he had plummeted straight down into one of Gotham’s streets from a tall building, preparing to open his cape to glide on the rushing breeze that often whirled through the city.

He studied John carefully, taking in his contemplative expression. Bruce had little doubt that Crane enjoyed learning what his patient’s fear-induced hallucinations were under his drug’s effects, and considering Crane’s obsession with horror, it was clear that the doctor was seeing if he could influence the hallucinations further by making himself appear as a monster.

“I…can’t really remember all of it, though,” John lamented. “My memory of his sessions started getting pretty bad a few weeks ago…”

 _A side-effect of the drug,_ Bruce thought to himself. John _had_ said he “thought it was just the drugs they were putting him on” at first; and of course, Crane had decided to keep John hidden away so Bruce as an extra measure, so he wouldn’t suspect anything…

“I remember sitting in the chair… He said something…” John’s eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. “Oh! I broke the chair cuff – he hadn’t strapped it properly! _That’s_ how I lunged at him…” He trailed off, eying the empty display peg. “I wonder if he _knows_ about his nickname…”

“There’s a good chance, but I don’t think that’s the exact reason he took that mask with him. He’s got several versions of _The Walking Scarecrow_ on his shelves, and that poster looks like it was taken directly from a movie theater. He clearly favored it.” Bruce glared at the wall of masks. “I’m not sure he’d be upset about the name enough to go after people from Arkham, but he’s definitely planning to be a costumed criminal.”

“Those sure seem to be a running theme in Gotham, huh? Maybe those Owl guys were onto something with the whole _‘evil looms over the city’_ thing,” he said half-jokingly, deepening his voice for further effect.

“He doesn’t happen to have a diary over here or anything, does he?” Bruce asked, kneeling down by the desk’s bookshelf. There were a lot of psychology magazines, including the issues Bruce knew had Crane’s own essays or replies in them – those were flagged with little yellow or blue pieces of tape on the binding – and several issues of _Fangore_ and duplicates of the textbooks Bruce had seen in the doctor’s office at Arkham, but there were a few different binders, all white with simple labels. _Financials_ (nothing but tax work and ordinary receipts), _Letters_ (a quick flip just showed printed or scanned copies of commentary for Crane’s work, with the less friendly letters having short jabbing retorts written underneath in pen), _Old Research_ (completely empty), _Arkham_ …

The biggest folder, with a little printed photo of the asylum on the front, was also empty. But unlike the _Old Research_ binder, this one had a folded note stuck in the thin flap at the front:

_If you’re reading this, it’s too late - time’s up!_

Bruce wasn’t sure what disturbed him more:  the foreboding message of things to come, or the neat little smiley face drawn underneath.

He put it back, disgusted. Anything useful that might point to Crane’s misdoings was gone.

“Bad news, Bruce,” John said, his hand on the open lid of the old laptop sitting on the desk’s workstation, “The drive on this thing is missing.”

Sure enough, there was a large rectangular hole in the side of the outdated laptop where the hard drive should have been.

“There’s nothing in the drawers, either, except some statements and junk.”

“Any password journals?”

“Not even a sticky note,” John grumbled with a pout, crossing his arms and leaning against the small desk. “Guy sure was careful about cleaning up after himself… That, or he uses one password for everything.”

Bruce stood, thinking carefully. They’d been inside every room, and only the office and bedroom had anything unusual that broke up Crane’s usual methodical nature. “I don’t think we’ll be able to find anything else here. Let’s go back to the Manor. We’ll see if we can get a triangulation on the growing area of those flowers.”

“You think he’ll be getting more?” John asked with a raised brow, moving to follow Bruce out.

“He mentioned in his notes that he had to salvage what he could from the flowers as they died to finish making his ‘Fear Toxin’; that was just the other day. If he needs to make more, he’ll head where they were kept first. They might have been stored locally, so if there’s any pollen or unusual soil, I can use that to get an idea of where they might have been raised initially.”

John looked impressed; there was a sort of dreamy quality to the sharp stare. “Man, Bruce, just when I thought you couldn’t live up to that ‘detective’ title more, you pull out the C.S.I. creds…”

Bruce knew he really had to give Lucius the credit, but he didn’t have time to delve into all that – and he had sort of explained that to John before, during one of his visits. He was pretty sure John remembered it.

The former vigilante double-checked everything was back in its place, including placing the vague note back where John had found it, and then Bruce checked the drone’s position outside. He could barely see the gleam of the camera lens in the corner of the small yard. He couldn’t leave it there forever, but the solar-powered battery would give him a couple more hours at least. He had a gut-feeling that Crane wasn’t coming back…but it didn’t mean he shouldn’t keep an eye on the place to make sure.

He almost felt like he was leaving his own home, second-guessing on whether or not a light had been left on. He swiveled his head as he heard the security system give a confirmation beep – John shut the plastic panel with a satisfied smile.

“You can be pretty predictable, sometimes, Bruce,” the thin man said with a knowing look, already answering Bruce’s question of _how_ before it even formed properly in his head. “I don’t blame you for it, though.”

Bruce just gave him a somewhat stern look, receiving one of John’s short trademark laughs in return. It was strange to hear it in the near-darkness like that; the billionaire had gotten used to its unusual pitch and waver, even finding himself liking it more often than not, but at times like these, when John proved how well he really knew him, it made something in him quiver.

Then again, he didn’t really let anyone else into his private life. Maybe he would have the same reaction to other people who knew him that well.

The orange light from the streetlamp was a welcome sight as Bruce let John get out first, who seemed to just watch Bruce as he closed the front door behind them.

He heard the lock click in place, and John grabbed his wrist.

“You know, the, uh, the night doesn’t _have_ to end here,” John said in an attempt at a teasing sort of tone. There was a slight jingling sound from a distance, and Bruce realized someone was coming towards them. “You could come back to my place…”

Bruce turned to face him, working his usual playboy-smirk onto his face, despite his own nerves starting to rattle; if someone got a look at him, there was a good chance he’d be recognized. “Really? What’ll we do there?” He teased back in a deeper voice, not _entirely_ unlike his old vigilante persona.

John’s eyes lit up, and Bruce could tell some of his nerves were melting away. “We’d start by getting you a better car,” He moved forward, a light laugh on his lips, slipping right into the role he was playing with a definite sensuality in his acid-green gaze. “One with a better backseat…”

Bruce felt his heart pounding in his ears as John slipped a hand around the back of his neck. He could hear footsteps on the pavement…

“And then we start round three,” John purred, tilting his head and leaning in until his lips were brushing the corner of Bruce’s mouth. They were partially obscured from view now. “Sorry,” he whispered, the not-at-all-apologetic word sending a flutter in Bruce’s chest, “just kind of pretend…”

The person on the sidewalk was coming closer. Bruce felt like he was standing stock-still, and he knew he shouldn’t be, and it was going to be hard to ‘pretend’ anything when John’s low voice was nearly oozing with desire. He almost felt like showing John the consequences of trying to one-up the notorious play-boy bachelor act he adopted by kissing him so hard he’d forget about even _trying_ to be the ‘top’ part of their imaginary relationship.

He roped that feeling in. Allowing himself any more than the bare minimum of indulgence with John was dangerous. He reminded himself quickly that this was an act and that it meant nothing at all.

Bruce leaned in and kissed him gently, one arm curling around the smaller man’s middle almost out of reflex. He felt like his heart was going to stop when John let out a delighted hum. Despite being a little chapped, John’s mouth was warm and inviting, and Bruce felt like kicking himself for even paying the slightest bit attention to it. Heat was rising to his face and squirming in his stomach as his lips almost burned with the warmth of the kiss, and he was unable to _not_ notice the way John leaned into him and how nice it was to have someone press against him so familiarly.

It really _had_ been too long since Bruce went out on a date. He hadn’t helped himself by turning down the couple of offers that he’d gotten over the months, but with his murky reputation making his business-life difficult for both Wayne Enterprises and Arkham Asylum, and with his weekly visits to John on top of caring for himself, he just hadn’t had the energy to drum up interest…

The pedestrian sounded like they passed them by, and Bruce pulled way just enough to check; neither the woman nor the tiny Pomeranian in front of her gave them a backwards glance as they carried onward, past the next condo’s stairwell and beyond…

The glow on John’s face lasted only a moment, until he side-eyed the sidewalk and then looked back to Bruce. “Is she gone?”

“Yeah.”

He slumped and gave a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I was sure she’d notice you,” he muttered.

John was clearly covering for himself. Bruce didn’t blame him for a minute, feeling his heartrate still going a little faster than normal; his own method of coping was to change the subject. “Let’s get out of here,” he said in his somewhat-deeper voice, telling himself to forget the whole thing ever happened.

“I couldn’t agree more, handsome,” John replied aloud with an exaggerated wink. They walked back to the car, John keeping one hand in his coat pocket. “Nice work back there, Bruce,” he whispered, flashing a thumb’s up and a genuine smile, “We completely avoided suspicion! And as a bonus, now I know how all your dates feel at the end of the night,” he added with a joking sort of laugh.

Bruce decided to just ignore that comment, and focused instead driving them back to the Manor as fast as possible, keeping his eyes peeled for any peeping neighbors and hoping that the cops patrolling his house hadn’t tried to get his attention while they were gone.

*~*~*~*~*

Arriving back in the Batcave felt more like coming home than walking into the Manor ever did. Bruce just wished he could be parking his usual car rather than the stolen Honda.

John was almost beside himself with excitement as Bruce carefully put the dead flower they had procured on the Batcomputer’s scanner. John, having cast aside his coat the second they arrived back, was happy to lean on the back of the chair in front of the machine, alternating between tapping one foot in a rhythm and drumming his fingers against his wrist.

“I can’t believe I get to see this puppy in action!” He giggled as Bruce pulled up the analysis software. “How long did it take to even make this thing?”

“About a year,” Bruce answered, watching the software speed through lists of plants it had on file. “I was already establishing myself as Batman before Lucius finished it.”

“Oh, _right_ , that handsome friend of yours… This must be _some_ piece, then, eh?”

“You’re only seeing _part_ of what it can do.”

The Batcomputer beeped, the light under the scanner switching off as the analysis completed itself.

The plant was a derivative of the foxglove flower, called Moon’s Foxglove; a quick look-up told Bruce it could cause confusion and paranoia, and wasn’t native to their side of the globe.

“Let’s see about what was on it…”

“Geez, this thing must have more RAM than the whole city put together,” John commented from his side, choosing to lean his elbow against the headrest instead. “Arkham’s machines always get so boggled down, they have to restart them every night…”

“Well when the server investment goes through, that won’t be a problem.”

“Aw, don’t spoil the fun, Bruce,” John pouted, “What if I need to sneak into Thompson’s office again?”

Bruce’s eyebrows rose. “You did that?” He remembered Jackie Lant making the claim previously, and the brief mention of the camera being turned away from Dr. Thompson’s office when they just gotten a new guard. Did she cover for John, or did they _both_ go at different times…?

John seemed to pose straighter as he gave a smug grin back at him. “You bet I did! I left no stone unturned – and then flipped them back over! Didn’t _find_ much, though. A lot of fabricated garbage on Crane’s part. Did you know he’s not a Gothamite? He apparently grew up on a farm.”

“…that kind of explains the weird country music,” Bruce offered, wondering if perhaps Crane wasn’t heading back to his old home. (No, his last three addresses had all been in Gotham, and he had never tried to transfer out in all the years he’d been teaching. The majority of people with his income range who migrated into the city tried to transfer out somewhere else at least once within their first couple of years here…)

Bruce returned back to the pollen analysis. Aside from some of the mushroom spores, there were traces of wild ginger and waterlily tulips. Both did very well in high levels of water, so that likely pointed to somewhere lining the river.

Bruce scrolled through the information on the plants. The ginger flourished in acidic soil… He hit the switch for the hologram map, hearing the arm near him start to whir as it stretched over the table popping out of the floor.

“Oh, that is _so cool!”_ John gushed, whirling around to watch as the hologram of the city popped into display. Bruce couldn’t help but smile a little at the unrestrained enthusiasm.

“The wild ginger grows in acidic soil, and both it and the tulips should be growing near water,” he explained aloud as he typed in the commands to highlight any areas that matched. “The red areas should be potential locations.”

The chair spun itself around, and Bruce joined John in leaning over the hologram.

“Well, cross the docks off,” John pointed out, his sparkling green eyes roaming the map. “Can’t quite put a greenhouse there...”

“No, but I know where you could put one and no one would be any the wiser,” he grumbled, honing in on the spot nearest the edge of the city. “Toxic Acres. I’ve found more than my share of drug dealers settling in there before. They tend turn the abandoned houses into laboratories.”

“I _knew_ I heard that name before! One of your first team-ups with Gordon was busting that drug-ring there, right? The one run by the Maroni family!”

Bruce knew he shouldn’t be surprised at John remembering even the oldest Batman-related case, but it still flustered him. “Yes, actually, that’s…right. We shouldn’t drive down there until we can confirm that’s where he’ll be. I’ll get a drone to check. I should still have one stationed close to there from when I was searching last night.”

“If it’s not stolen and hocked for parts by now,” John muttered with a sly little grin.

“It’s well-camouflaged.” Though…he wouldn’t put it past fate to give him more trouble.

Pulling up the drone network took moments. Thankfully, the small drone he had hidden in one of the few trees in Toxic Acres’ main street was completely intact, but the battery was getting low due to the cloud cover and long-term disuse. He maybe had fifteen minutes left on it at the most, and that wasn’t nearly enough time to even fly it back. He’d have to either send another drone to rescue it or go out there himself later.

John was watching him with razor-sharp attention. “I’m surprised you don’t have to use a joystick for those things,” he commented, not tearing his eyes away from Bruce’s hands on the table’s controls. “Do you even have a pilot’s license?”

“Actually, I _do_ have one for a helicopter. I’m afraid my plane expertise was taught by Mini Flight Emulator.”

“Ha! A true Renaissance Man, huh? Any _other_ skills you’re keeping quiet…?”

Bruce tried to really shove down the little jolt that came with John’s almost sultry grin, but the fact that it happened at all was worrisome, and that made him more nervous. It didn’t help that John was leaning against the table in that perfectly-fitted suit… “I don’t think so.”

The drone’s camera flickered, casting uneven light from the Batcomputer’s monitor over them and drawing the former-vigilante’s attention.

A person in a plaid button-down and jeans was walking past a borderline-dilapidated house, seeming to be having a phone conversation. Bruce turned up the microphone as he guided the drone to follow.

It was Jonathan Crane, in the flesh.

“Yes, Pam’,” he said, his high voice crackling slightly, “I _am_ counting the houses. I don’t know why you don’t just stand outside… I _know_ I’m interrupting, but-”

Bruce watched carefully, barely registering that John had stepped closer to the monitor to look, his arms folded across his chest.

A sudden gunshot rang out, and Crane fell forward, dropping his phone to clutch his rapidly-reddening arm as he kneeled in the street.

John gave a cruel laugh; Bruce’s forced himself to focus on the screen and not at the memory of standing in Crime Alley, clutching his mother for dear life.

A figure in a dark blue hoodie strolled into the street’s view.

“I finally caught up with you… You’re a hard man to find, Professor.”

_Jackie Lant._

Bruce zoomed in to maximum, even flying as close as he dared to watch from above.

“Miss Lant,” Dr. Crane said as if he wasn’t bleeding from his shoulder, “what a pleasant surprise.”

“It won’t be pleasant for long,” the young woman said coldly, aiming the barrel of her revolver at the doctor’s head. It looked like the .45 Alfred threw away after Bruce’s parent’s had died; Bruce never regretted getting rid of his father’s gun, even if it had been an heirloom. “Would you like some final words?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” The doctor seemed to stare her down through his glasses, cold criticism the only thing readable there as he made to stand. “I would like to know _why_ you want to kill me. And in such a crude fashion… You were one of my best students, Miss Lant, _surely_ you can think up something better than this.”

Jackie’s face twisted into an annoyed frown. “Don’t feed me that bullshit. You didn’t even remember what I _looked_ like when Arkham hired me.”

“No, I didn’t,” the doctor confessed, “and I don’t mind you hating me for that. I’m rather terrible with remembering people’s faces without constant exposure.”

Crane took his hand off his bleeding arm.

He was liable to bleed out if he kept pressure off it for long… There was no way for Bruce to get down there in time to do anything. The best he could do was keep the drone’s recorded footage and pick up the pieces, and the thought of leaving _anyone_ to die made him feel like ice water had been dumped into his veins.

“But surely you know you were the only student I have ever invited into my home,” he pressed, his flat high voice attempting something soothing. “You’re the only one I thought would really understand my research.”

“Oh, but I _do_.” Jackie flashed a shark-like smile at him, a manic look in her eyes. “It’s why I _stole_ it, Professor! Every little scrap you ever wrote! I was hoping you’d find that out _yourself_ when you went back home,” she added with a little shrug. “But I can deal with gloating to your face.”

Crane stared. “I see… So I presume you’ll dump my body in the river and run, now?”

Crane’s hand whipped up from his hip, a small concealable pistol in his hand, and he fired before anyone could blink.

Jackie stumbled backward, a patch of red blooming over her stomach as she fell back onto the grass, completely still, the .45 still clutched loosely in her hand.

“How very disappointing.”

Crane picked up the phone from the pavement.

“Pam’? Sorry about that. I’ll be there shortly. I was dealing with…a student. No, it’s fine, I’ll just move the body later.”

The doctor returned to clutching his arm as he continued on his way, giving Jackie’s body a quick final glance.

The camera feed was starting to die. The low-battery warning in the corner was flashing red. Bruce kept his focus on Crane as he swiftly flew the drone back into its hiding spot, hoping he could at least see the house the doctor was heading to before it was too late.

He only caught the glimpse of Jackie Lant rolling to sit up on the overgrown patch of grass before the battery completely died.

 _“Wow,_ guess I won that bet,” John grinned, his face shining with a dark glee. “I _knew_ she was trying to steal his work! And that _determination!”_ He hissed, “She’s got to have some _major_ issues to go that far! You could practically see it on her face…”

Bruce was finding it hard to think clearly.

He should have never given up Batman. He could’ve stopped this. He could’ve stopped the shoot-out, he could’ve done something – _anything_ – to stop Crane before any of this happened.

“Bruce?” John turned, the expression softening. “Oh… Bruce, don’t pull that guilty face,” he chided gently.

He rounded on him, frustration and guilt overflowing. “I could have _stopped_ this!”

“Bruce, buddy,” John soothed, putting a hand on his shoulder, “something like this was _always_ going to happen. It’s not your fault those two are messed up.”

“It’s my fault it _got_ to this point,” he growled. “If I hadn’t stopped being Batman, _none_ of that would have happened!”

“Oh, Bruce, we _both_ know that’s a lie,” John muttered, the deep, knowing look penetrating him as he grasped both of his shoulders. “You never really stopped in the first place. You just took a little break and tried to shove the battier parts of you down where you didn’t have to look at them every day. Saying you’re not _Batman_ is like saying you’re not _Bruce Wayne;_ you can’t separate the two when they’re really the same person.”

Bruce wanted to argue that they weren’t the same person, that they were complete opposites, that John was wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

But he _knew_ that was just a defensive front.  

John was right. He’d called Bruce out back at the rec room, when he was leaning against the bars, and he’d seen the broiling instincts that kept nagging at Bruce under his skin since the day Bruce had told subtlety him he’d quit. He knew, like Bruce did, that the Batman was never really going to stay buried.

It didn’t change the fact that Bruce had to get back into the suit when he promised he wouldn’t.

He thought of Tiffany, Alfred, and John, who would undoubtedly be put back into stressful, dangerous situations.

He thought of the potential damage the Fear Toxin could do if it was unleashed on even one member of the public.

It wasn’t the first time he’d put the lives of many over one he cared about. Like Selina Kyle, he knew Alfred wasn’t going to come back from this kind of betrayal.

John’s hands slid down his arms, burning trails through Bruce’s hooded jacket as he grinned at him, the searching look never leaving his face. “You know I’m right…”

Bruce hated the fact that he _knew_ he was never going to forget that look.

“I have some Enterprise work to do,” he said firmly as John pulled his hands away, “but I’m heading out to Toxic Acres as soon as I can. I need you to keep an eye on Jackie and Crane’s places in the meantime. And I might need a distraction to get the Batmobile out of storage later.”

John’s eyes lit up like Christmas lights. “You can count on me, Bruce! I’ll be watching like a _hawk!”_

He knew he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re wondering what would’ve happened with the other two Kissing Scene “route options” – because I know John would normally love roughhousing and we’re all desperate to see them make out super-hard – these are their outcomes. :)
> 
> “Sorry, just kind of pretend…”
> 
> >[…]  
> >> “I’m really sorry, Bruce. I knew you’d be uncomfortable with it, but… I just hope she didn’t notice you…”  
> >>{John is disappointed in you for not playing along, and is worried that you might have blown your cover as a consequence.}
> 
> >[be rough]  
> >> “Remember what I said about _consent,_ Bruce? It’s _important!_ Don’t take advantage of me like that!”  
>  >>{John is angry at you for taking things too far and is concerned about the level of respect in your relationship.}
> 
> Also, I completely made up a variety of plant, because what else could you do? I’m no botanist, but I wanted a plant that had some nasty side effects, so a foxglove variety that shouldn’t exist is born! If there’s actually a botanist out there that can give me a flower that’s closer to something that can induce confusion, tell me! I didn’t want to delve _too_ far into the topic because I don’t wanna be shoved on some watch list for just trying to research a plant for fanfic use. :T
> 
> Lastly, as always, thank you very much for your comments, kudos, subscriptions, and bookmarks! You guys are the best!!! I’ll see you next week!!! ৲( ᵒ ૩ᵕ )৴♡*৹


	10. Grapevines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Arrives two days late with Starbucks* ‘Sup, guys! σ( ▼∀▼)σ These past 96 hours have somehow filled me with a weird chaotic energy, and I pumped out the longest roller-coaster of a chapter I’ve ever done in such a short amount of time!!! Thank you, whoever sent all the writing vibes my way!!!! ★>d(,,･ε´-,,)⌒☆ I’m sending out strong vibes to everybody in return! _*May you get hit by the writing bug and have the opportunity and energy to completely translate your ideas to printed words!*_
> 
> Anywho~! **Important Spoiler Tags:** drugs (mentioned), swearing, canon-typical violence, electric shocks (mentioned), torture of flowers, flirting, almost an excessive use of emoji, crying, romantic dirty thoughts
> 
> Thank you all again for your continuously loving support!!! ♡~(ɔ ˘3˘)˘⌣˘ c)

Bruce Wayne couldn’t remember the last time he’d conducted a meeting from his home office. It wasn’t as if he didn’t use it – the desk surface had hardly any dust settled on it and two empty coffee mugs he’d forgotten about on two different occasions just _happened_ to be stacked behind the monitor – but it felt strange, like a lot of things did lately.

He knew part of the reason for that was watching houses down in the Batcave right now. Knowing he wasn’t alone in the house was comforting, but knowing there were two cops outside the Manor’s front door just waiting for a chance to grab his best friend-cum-houseguest was not, and knowing that they were _both_ close to being thrown in hot water was even less so.

He figured the other reason he felt strange was because he was slipping back into his old habit as if it had never been shelved in the first place. He had time to kill before the video meeting started, so he’d been scouring for information on “Pam”, Jonathan Crane’s ‘old friend’.

There were a few Pamela’s in Gotham, but only one fit within Crane’s age-range and attended Gotham University at about the same time:  Pamela Isley, a forty-four-year-old former botanist with a record that ran the length of his arm. Theft, assault, threats, and attempted poisonings all done in the name of extreme environmentalism and social activism were sprinkled in her history before and after her days as a researcher, and according to GCPD records, she was now suspected of running her own drug-ring under the moniker of ‘Poison Ivy’. (Bruce found several recorded instances of people claiming to be Poison Ivy, most of whom were already arrested.)

Bruce would’ve wondered why on Earth she hadn’t been thrown in prison when she made a bomb-threat at a wealthy businessman several states away nearly a decade ago if he hadn’t seen her mug-shot from back then. At thirty-five, she looked every bit as beautiful as a top-billed Hollywood star, with natural orange-red curls cascading over her pale shoulders and ample bust in chemically-tamed waves, flashing the camera a come-hither stare that made it look like she was trying for a part in a high-budget porn flick rather than standing in front of a height chart for her criminal record. Pamela’s charges were mysteriously swept under the rug.

The latest photo he found of her reminded him a bit of those ‘cougar’ dating ads he’d seen – the older Pamela was blowing a kiss to the camera with a mocking look in her dark green eyes. Bruce glared at it. There was little doubt she was using people to cover for her constantly, and when she _was_ in trouble, she managed to wriggle out of it with her looks.

Not this time. She was friends with Dr. Jonathan Crane, and that meant she wasn’t going to get out of this unharmed. The second his virtual meeting was over, Bruce was heading towards Toxic Acres, and hopefully the wounded Crane would still be there to see Batman’s fist hit his –

Bruce snapped out of his thoughts at the buzz of his phone. A message from the Batcomputer…?

> I’m bored :/

Bruce blinked down at the screen. John had found the emergency messaging system. Of course he had. He was just grateful that the encryption software on his phone was still up to date. Just what else did John poke his nose into down there…? (There was the chance that John would see files he shouldn’t, but Bruce kept those under a thumbprint encryption. He shouldn’t even _entertain_ the thought.)

_Stake-outs are usually pretty boring._

> It wouldn’t be so bad if you were down here tho! :)

Bruce hovered his thumb over the keyboard, unsure of what to say. The feeling was kind of mutual, if he was being honest; having another person around on a stakeout would at least keep his mind wandering into the worsts of what-ifs and double-checking every last security issue…

> No movement on either houses btw. Been reading Crane’s docs in the meantime but it’s DREADFUL!!! I feel like I’m reading a sleeping pill… =_=
> 
> You finish your WE stuff yet?

_Meeting’s not for another 20 minutes. Been looking up stuff on Crane’s “friend”._

> Oh??? :o Do tell!!!!

Bruce couldn’t help but smile at the eagerness.

_Pamela Isley, former botanist w/ criminal rec., mostly extreme protest kind of stuff. Good chance she’s the head of a drug-ring that moved here a couple months ago; their leader goes by “Poison Ivy”._

_They went to college together, but Pamela moved back here recently._

> hMmMmm… That means no burning the place down if we’re stuck! Bad fumes everywhere xP

Bruce focused on the word _“we’re”_. He hadn’t been planning on bringing John along. He wanted him safe, at home, where no one had a chance of seeing him and he wasn’t put in harm’s way…

> Oh!!! You’ve got a bunch of sticky electro-shockers around - do you mind if I tinker with them? :3c pleeeeaaasssee?

_What are you thinking of doing with them?_

> Making one BIIIIIG shock-bomb, of course! ;D I can wire them together so the shock spreads evenly in the space while it’s discharging.

Bruce reconsidered bringing John. He was still learning to curb his impulses, so being outside in a fighting environment _would_ be a serious gamble, but... Maybe that could be their advantage, too. Bruce made a mental note to go dig out the spare bullet-proof vest from his closet’s secret panel.

_You can do that?_

> I played around with making something like it before, but……well, you know.
> 
> Time + supplies for that project were low att. I figured I could always go back to it later anyway.

Bruce felt like his heart had deflated and swelled in such a short time that it hurt.

> I mean I’m fine with throwing knives around too but I figured that would be less discrete ¯\\_(ツ )_/¯

He’d been thinking of different methods of entering the “house”. Most of them featured a silent slip-in and as little combat as possible, but he knew that there would likely be some muscle around to stop any would-be intruders, and getting a quieter jump on them would certainly be helpful. He would certainly be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed that John had thought that far ahead even back _then_.

_If you think you can get it done within 1.5 hours, then yes._

> Ha ha ha with these supplies I can get it done in like 40 mins! >:3 just you watch!!!
> 
> Btw have you seen the news?

_Not yet. Why?_

> I was on the morning edition! At least they used a good pic ;D
> 
> But also saw a guy getting fished out of the harbor. Your handy-dandy invasion software said he’s a registered Ryde driver.

_I told you not to fiddle with that._

> Sorry, but I only used it the once! Promise!!!

Bruce sighed through his nostrils.

> Besides I thought you’d want to know. Think Crane stole his ride and dumped him by the docks? :v

_Probably. I can get the plate from up here to verify. DO NOT TOUCH THAT PROGRAM AGAIN._

> Yes sir ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Bruce wasn’t sure if that message was supposed to be flirtatious or mocking.

The incoming call from Iman Avesta stopped him from responding. He figured it had to do with John’s escape and the extra security added at Wayne Tower this morning, but why was she calling him _now_ , rather than several hours ago?

“Iman?”

“Hey, Bruce. Hold on a sec – there we go, now we can both -”

“Bruce, what the _fuck?”_ Tiffany asked over the line. “Are you at home right now?”

Bruce almost sighed at the attitude. “Yes, Tiffany, I’m at home, in my office.”

“Uh- _huh_. I keep getting alerts that your _basement’s_ messaging system is being used. Care to _explain_ that?”

Oh. Of course. He’d forgotten Tiffany had linked her phone to that, too. It’d just…been too long, he supposed. (She couldn’t read them, though, could she? He was fairly sure it didn’t give out mass-texts unless prompted.) “…where are you right now?”

Iman responded instead. “We’re in your second office.”

“…the line’s secure?”

“Of course.” Iman paused, and Bruce knew his new CSO was choosing her words carefully. “I’m guessing you have John Doe in the Batcave?”

“Yes.”

“Bruce, did you fucking _break him out?”_ Tiffany asked with no shortness of impatience.

“I _rescued_ him,” Bruce said firmly. “I know what you’re thinking, and I have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to say, but _listen:_   I had no choice but to take him with me. One of the doctors working at Arkham has gone rogue – he’d been doing experiments on patients, and I have a feeling he’s going to continue them on civilians. I need to find him _before_ then, and John has been helping me.”

“Helping…? You’re not bringing him in the _field_ with you?” Tiffany said disbelievingly. “After that psychopath almost _killed_ us?”

Bruce could still see Joker running at Tiffany, knife in hand, his psychotic breakdown in full force. He could still see him being smacked against the railing, sheer madness played over his long, bloody face as he desperately fought to stab what _was_ his hero.

But John and Joker were as much the same as Bruce and Batman were, and they were constantly changing.

The Joker in the Batcave _wasn’t_ the same one from Ace Chemicals.  

“I know what John did,” he answered, trying to breathe even as something wanted to hitch in his throat, “and I know how far he’s come since then. I know you both regret-”

“No, I’m _not_ listening to this right now,” Tiffany scowled, her voice fading in the middle her sentence like she was leaving the room. “Talk some _sense_ into him.”

Bruce heard Iman’s voice call after her, and then nothing for a beat.

Iman sighed. “I’ll talk to her. But Bruce,” she started seriously, “Tiffany isn’t the only one worrying about you. Six months can’t possibly cure everything wrong with a man whose spent his life in an asylum.” He could practically hear her chew over her phrasing. “I need to know… If John goes too far – if he shows signs of regressing…or just becoming more volatile – I _need_ to know you’re going to put your foot down.”

“I’m more than capable of handling him, Iman.”

“Please, Bruce, I’d rather not have to pull you off another broken pipe lodged in your kidney.” She paused, and Bruce let her continue, feeling the scar in his side twinge at the painful memory. “I know you care a lot about him,” she resumed in a softer tone, “and I know you trust him. But if you doubt him at any time, you need you to step back and re-evaluate your choices. I don’t want him to regress back into the Joker.”

 _That was a different Joker,_ Bruce wanted to say. He knew that wouldn’t sound the way it should. “I promise I won’t let that happen.”

“Good to know,” Iman replied, sounding somewhat relieved. “This doctor you’re hunting – is there anything we can do to help?”

Bruce shot a look at the clock in the corner of his monitor. He didn’t have as much time left as he would’ve liked before his virtual meeting started. “Tiffany can fill you in a bit, I had her help searching Arkham’s records before. Can you run a plate for me? I think Dr. Crane is running with a stolen car; I’ll send you the details in a bit.”

“Sure. We can check traffic cams for it, too, if you’d like.”

“If you would. And the second I have anything concrete on Dr. Crane, I’m sending Tiffany the details – I need her pull as Oracle to get the word out to the GCPD before anything happens. They’ll listen to their number-one informant more than a vigilante coming out of retirement.”

“…you’re…?”

He could almost _see_ the shock in her face. They’d had a short discussion about his alter-ego when he decided to quit the first time; she’d been incredibly understanding about the whole thing. It was almost as if she’d seen it coming.

“Are you sure?”

He was as sure. She didn’t know about the instincts broiling underneath his surface every day. She didn’t know he never really stopped being half of himself. She wouldn’t know or really _understand_ that he just shoved it all down and aside like he did so much else just to get through things. “I don’t have any other options at this point.”

“…you know you can count on us if you need the help.”

“Of course I do.”

“Right. Well, in the meantime we’ll keep the fort over here running as smoothly as possible.”

“Thank you. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Good luck.”

The line went silent, and Bruce pulled his phone away, catching a glimpse of three unread messages.

> Sorry, buddy, I was just kidding around, you know? Ha ha
> 
> Bruce???
> 
> Hello???????

_Sorry, had a phone call and couldn’t reply. It’s fine._

Seconds ticked by, and Bruce began changing out of his black t-shirt and into his button-down. It wouldn’t do to appear as a CEO in anything less than a proper suit. He could leave the jeans on, at least.

“ _Oh! Uh…sorry, Bruce…”_

He felt his heart stop for a second. That was definitely John’s voice, even though it crackled slightly from the speakers. The monitor didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. John must have been using the spy-camera feature on the Batcomputer; it was linked to most the devices in the house, and Bruce’s webcam was no exception. He’d almost forgotten it had a loudspeaker function, too.

_“I didn’t realize you were…um, changing.”_

Bruce glared at the webcam’s lens. “John, what did I tell you about fiddling with the Batcomputer?”

“ _…sorry. I was worried when you didn’t answer me._ ”

He sounded genuine, at least. Bruce could easily picture him running upstairs to find him, if there wasn’t a chance he would’ve been seen. “I answered you a minute ago. I was on a call with Iman,” he stated plainly, fixing the buttons on his sleeves.

_“…oh, ha ha, there it is! Uh, I guess I’ll just…go, then…”_

Bruce almost questioned why John was sounding nervous and distracted, but it wasn’t until he saw the webcam light wink off again that he realized his shirt was wide open, the scars littering his torso half on display from the waist up.

Thankfully, no one was around to see Bruce bury his face in the palm of his hand for a moment, feeling like his face was on fire from first _and_ second-hand embarrassment.

It didn’t last long. Bruce took a few deep breaths as he fixed himself up, and dialed into the meeting with a fixed expression of calm, firmly ignoring the heat that had settled in his stomach that threatened to go lower at the thought that John was bound not to forget _any_ of that.

*~*~*~*~*

Driving the Batmobile in full gear again was certainly something else. Bruce felt the weight of the Kevlar body armor press against his limbs as he sped down Gotham’s twisting alley streets, no one any the wiser that the Wayne’s red sports car was hiding Batman behind it. The city’s CCTV signal was scrambled with the flick of a switch as he came into driving distance of the alley’s camera, making him almost untraceable.

He’d given the Honda Accord a head-start; it couldn’t go nearly as fast as the Batmobile, and Bruce had to find a spot to safely change before going to go pick John up from his drop-off point, and the post-working-hours traffic had already gotten its usual early start. It was a slower drive than he’d like it to be, even with Bruce’s shortcuts.

The setting sun was completely obscured by a dark overcast. It made the orange streetlamps glowing over the decorations sitting here and there in windows and doors even more energetic, like every corner of Gotham was slowly growing with the _energy_ of Halloween.

Bruce clicked the communicator in his cowl. “John, are you there yet?”

Silence for a few seconds, and then a rustling noise. “Sorry, I had to take this off for a bit. What?”

“Are you _there_ yet?”

John giggled slightly. “Oh, yeah, I’m here. Just waiting on you, pal.”

He was already at the meeting point? How did he get there so fast? “You put everything back where it was supposed to be?”

 _“No_ , I stripped the seats and threw everything into the _garbage,”_ John grumbled with dripping sarcasm. “Of _course_ I did, it’d be _rude_ not to put Jerry’s stuff back. What do you take me for?”

“…I’m just making sure you didn’t forget anything.”

“I didn’t.” There was a loud slurping noise, like the last of a liquid being sucked from a straw.

“John, where are you _right now?_ ”

“In the alley, waiting for you.”

“Did you make a _stop?”_

John giggled, a little louder, but not at all nervous. He was enjoying himself. “What can I say? Going out on the town with you like this makes me _thirsty,”_ he said with a strange purr. “Besides, no one bats an eye at me when I look like this anyway.” He paused. “Well, no, I’ve gotten _some_ eyes on me, but, uh, I think they’re more the _appreciative_ type. I guess ZZ Top was kinda right about the sharp-dresser thing.”

Bruce felt his brows knit together. “You’ve _always_ looked sharp,” he said truthfully, turning down a narrow alley.

“Yeah, but not _thousand-dollar-suit_ sharp. There’s a difference! Plus I think this bullet-proof vest makes me look a little bulkier than I actually am.”

Bruce spotted him leaning against the graffiti-covered wall, a Burger Lord cup in one hand and a plastic orange bag in another. Just how much time did Bruce lose while he was changing?

John tossed the drink in the dumpster and practically jumped into the car, shoving the orange bag behind the driver seat and slamming the door shut as Bruce switched off the communicator. He took one look at Bruce’s questioning glower and gave a nervous sort of grin. “Hey, don’t look at me like that, there’s something in there for _you,_ too.”

Bruce almost asked what, but decided that a lecture on keeping a low profile and _not_ taking money from his house’s various hiding spots would have to wait. (Though he supposed whatever John got wasn’t expensive. He was quite frugal, and it wasn’t as if Bruce couldn’t afford to buy John whatever he wanted anyway.) He concentrated instead on heading down the twisting path towards Toxic Acres. At least the traffic over there was a hell of a lot lighter.

“Hey, when you drove me to the Batcave, did you go in fourth gear, or third?”

He wasn’t sure why he asked, but he honestly couldn’t remember. He just recalled putting his foot to the floor and keeping his eyes on the road, occasionally reaching over to check John’s pulse. “I wasn’t really paying attention to that; I concentrating more on driving as fast as possible.”

“Oh – so you didn’t know you could punch the shift down into third whenever you wanted? It was so fun! I can say I _literally_ punched it out of the Batcave!” He laughed. “I’m guessing you can’t do that in this car?”

“…I’ve got paddle shifters.” They were starting to travel into the more deserted road leading into Toxic Acres. Bruce took a sharp turn onto the hill with the broken _Do Not Enter_ sign, and checking that no one was behind him, flipped the switch to shift the car into armored plates and pressed the wheel-paddle for a lower gear.

They flew down the road with a whirring whine of the engine, John’s notorious excited laugh mixing with it, and Bruce allowed himself to smile a little at it, knowing his own little joyful thrill wouldn’t last very long.

John was soon tapping his fingers together in some kind of rhythm as they passed by more empty houses, Bruce moving a little slower to keep his eyes out for trouble. Sitting close to the river on the outskirts of the city, they were originally meant to be a long neighborhood for the middle and upper class to build their lives, but as the unemployment and crime rates rose, the place became abandoned. It didn’t help that the piping structure to carry water there had been faulty, making either lead poisoning or unfiltered dirty water a prominent problem and giving the section of Gotham its nickname.

“How do we know which place is the botanist’s?” John asked, his green eyes scouring the houses in front of them.

“I sent out another drone earlier for some aerial shots. There’s a place with camouflaged green-houses in the back on Aster Place.”

“Wow, you did that before I left? That was fast…”

“It was a quick job. I’m not picking up the other drone until later.”

They turned the corner onto Aster Place; the road would dead-end in a while, but Bruce knew the house wouldn’t be situated at the end.

“Oh, there’s the spot Jackie got shot at!” John pointed ahead. “I wonder if there’s a bloodstain left…!”

Bruce tightened his grip on the wheel. “We’re close.”

It was oddly quiet out there. There was no other sign of life in what was a hot-spot of criminal hide-outs. Bruce turned on the thermal vision in his cowl; a lot of the houses were actually empty for once.

Except for one. 1801 Aster Place. There were a group of people scattered around on the bottom floor and what appeared to be a lot of heat-lamps running on the top floor. If one of the people in the group wasn’t Pamela Isley, then she might have been holding up in the basement…

They left the Batmobile out of sight down the road, and Bruce and John moved swiftly behind the backs of the houses in the chilly night air, the taser bomb safely in John’s coat pocket; John was surprisingly quiet, only humming a familiar tune here and there. (Wasn’t it the theme from that old spy-thriller…?) Bruce managed to quiet him with a look, and John mimed locking his mouth shut and throwing the key away.

Two unknown people were standing in what used to be a kitchen; three more people were up in the front room of the house. There were no security cameras to be seen. 

“Stick close to me,” Bruce whispered, the modifier in his cowl deepening his voice. “We go in through the back window, take out the two in the kitchen quietly, and throw the bomb up front so we can cuff the lot. If none of them are Ms. Isley, we find the basement.”

John gave him a thumbs up, pulling out the riot baton he had hidden away. (Bruce had still not remembered when he or Alfred bought that, but vaguely remembered stashing it in the towel cupboard with some other emergency gear. He wasn’t surprised John found it.)

The bathroom window’s locks weren’t difficult to break. They looked like they had been broken several times already. Bruce slid the insect screen up and slipped in through the thin opening feet-first, twisting his limbs just right to softly land on the floor. He had to help pull John through the rest of the way after he smacked his head on the bottom of the window; thankfully he hadn’t made any noise, but he did give Bruce a strange look as brushed himself off where Bruce had gripped his sides.

Bruce didn’t have time to think about it.

The two people in the kitchen stood in semi-darkness, watching through the patio windows with rifles leaning against the wall. There wasn’t so much as a bare bulb to give off light. Bruce figured their eyes might have adjusted to the dark, and signaled John to follow as he crept up behind the two goons.

“I dunno, with all the hype surrounding episode four, you just _know_ those guys are going to mess up somewhere. Remember when they decided to let Celestyne drop to his death back in season one?” The one with dreadlocks asked.

“Oh, come on, that was just to test the game’s limits. Besides, Celestyne couldn’t die; I don’t think Jane can, either,” the second person responded in a higher voice with a casual shrug.

“Dude, you know the game’s gonna make her a villain in the end, though, right? She _might_ die…”

Bruce was ready. John was gripping the baton with a widening grin…

“Are you kidding me? They have her affection meter up so high I’m surprised the game doesn’t have a dating opt-”

Bruce slammed dreadlocked goon’s head into the wall just as the baton crashed down on the other goon’s skull, little smears of blood marking the plaster and paint with a satisfying crack.

John clutched the collar of the goon he’d struck, gripping the baton a little harder in his other hand. He seemed to be thinking.

Bruce took a zip-tie out and cuffed the goon’s hands behind their back, and wondered just what John was staring at until he’d turned the person around and caught a glimpse of them in the light of the window.

They were both women with little tattoos of vines creeping along the back of their necks.

If Bruce guessed right, those were ivy leaves on the vine. Poison Ivy had a loyal gang.

John zip-tied the wrists of the woman he’d struck and patted the top of her head. “Sorry,” he whispered as if she would hear it. “Lauren’s ex,” John mumbled, gesturing to the woman on the floor as if he knew Bruce had raised his eyebrow at him.

Bruce simply swept onward, spying the door for the basement. There was a light on in the front room, and three women who looked like they could be professional boxers of different weight categories were sitting in different areas. One was sharpening a knife at the table, and another was cleaning a semi-automatic rifle as the third kept watch over a monitor showing security camera footage; three looked to be by the greenhouses (Bruce recognized the Foxglove variety growing in one under an opening in the glass, sitting next to something that looked primeval), and two looked to be watching over the plants upstairs and in the basement.

There was a figure in the basement, working over a plant trough with low lamps. A zoom-in with Bruce’s lenses showed long red hair.

Bruce felt a hand on his shoulder, and John crept ahead him, the taser-bomb in hand:  it looked like a mass of the sticky-bombs grouped together, colorful wiring connecting them all like some kind of net, and before Bruce could do or say anything, John threw it into the living room, where it tumbled into the middle of the floor.

The group began to shoot out of their seats in a second, and in the next the ball seemed to expand like a geometric toy, the wired tasers being thrown in the air with a flash before smacking people and surfaces alike as they discharged. All three people fell to the floor in trembling heaps, and John dashed out and started to cuff them, Bruce close behind.

The electric bombs were safe to touch now that they had fully discharged, so Bruce had no qualm about stomping on the lightly-burning sections of carpet underneath some of them to prevent any spread of fire as he pushed them aside. The bulkiest goon wasn’t quite down for the count; she was still conscious.

She yanked John off her fallen comrade by his shoulder and threw him into the table’s edge. Bruce threw a Batarang at her arm just as she was about to punch, and John gave a swift knee to her stomach as she flinched.

She fell to the floor with a louder crash and a grunt, pulling the Batarang out from her arm and letting it drop to the floor. “You _fucker_ …” She said, glaring up at John before looking over at Bruce, her eyes widening as he approached with more Batarangs at the ready. “B-Batman…?”

“Yup! He’s _real,”_ John said playfully before smacking the side of her head with the baton. “And so am _I,”_ he added with a growl. He decided to tie her wrists behind the nearest table leg. “I hate not being able to call myself _Joker_ like this… Really sells it better.”

Bruce felt his heart twitch at the name. “You can call yourself that, if it helps,” Bruce said gently, tying the monitoring-station woman’s wrists together, “Just not to people’s faces.”

“Kinda defeats the point,” John grumbled.

Bruce shot a look at the security monitor – Pamela Isley didn’t seem to have heard anything. Still, precaution should be used. “Let’s go,” he said plainly, sweeping out of the room with a swish of his cape.

John tucked a hand into his pocket and followed.

The basement stairs were carpeted and quiet, but Bruce was careful to walk on the outsides rather than the middle. Spiders had clearly made themselves right at home in the damp corners of the walls, and he had to duck to avoid getting the tips of his cowl’s ears stuck in one of their webs. A soft sort of click was heard behind his back, and Bruce figured John had gotten out his grappling gun.

Pamela Isley was bent over a row of exotic-looking orchids posed under heat lamps, dabbing something into the center of a blue orchid’s petals. Bruce saw several troughs full of hallucinogenic mushrooms sitting on the other side of the wall.

“There you go, my darling,” she cooed in a honeyed voice, acting like she was carefully painting the center of the flower, “You’ll soon be the belle of the ball…”

Bruce eyed the electrical box on the other side of the room. It wouldn’t do to drown the place in darkness; he’d be able to see, but John wouldn’t. The best bet was to tackle and restrain her.

 _Or_ …

Bruce took out his own grappling gun, and aimed it at Isley’s collar. One click, and it snagged her shirt with practiced ease.

“What the-?!”

Pamela Isley was suddenly dragged yelping through the air at an angle, smacking hard into one of the tables and spilling several unusual potted flowers to the floor.

Bruce grabbed her and threw her to the concrete floor, standing over her with several Batarangs in his hand as John cackled beside him.

“Jonathan Crane,” Bruce growled out, _“Where is he?”_

Pamela Isley sat up, shock written all over her face as she processed exactly what happened – it quickly morphed to a steely stare. _“Batman,”_ she said slowly in a sweet voice, “I thought you were an urban legend,” she continued, wiping the corner of her mouth where a dribble of blood leaked out. “Do you always treat a lady this way?”

Bruce dragged her up by her collar and threw her against the wall, keeping her at arm’s length. “I _know_ he bought plants from you today. _Tell me where he is_.”

“Or what?” She taunted, smirking widely at him. “You think I haven’t been knocked around by men before? I’ve been in whole _worlds_ of hurt, honey.”

There was the distinct sound of the grappling wire rushing through the air, and then an enormous crash – John had taken out one of the mushroom tables, spilling the lot.

“Whoopsie,” John hummed, a wide unnerving grin on his face, “butter-fingers.”

Isley looked rather taken aback, but the expression quickly warped into a mocking glare. “You think destroying my inventory is going to intimidate me?”

John shrugged, leaning back against a table and knocking over a several small tropical plants with a slide of his hand, shattering the clay pots and sending the plants scattering to the hard floor.

That definitely got her attention; her face paled slightly and there was tremble in her. “Stop that! _”_

Bruce glared at her, mentally thanking John for his quick thinking. “Tell me where Crane is and I’ll _consider_ stopping him from tearing this place apart.”

Her dark green eyes glared at him with a slow-boiling dislike. “Let me go first.”

Bruce did a very quick once-over; she didn’t seem to have a gun holster on her, and she was definitely a lighter build than the rest of her gang. Knives were still a possibility. He decided to let go, keeping a Batarang between his fingers just in case as he stepped just out of her reach.

Pamela dusted off her green turtleneck. “I don’t know where he is, and I don’t care. He bought a few of my flowers and left,” she said, crossing her arms.

John laughed, fingering the leaves of the blue orchid she’d been attending. “With a hole in his shoulder? You didn’t even offer a _band-aid_ for that?”

Pamela was closely eyeing the plant in John’s hand. “What if I did?”

“I know he’s a friend of yours, Isley,” Bruce growled. “You’re the only one who could know what he’s planning.”

“I told you, I don’t _know,”_ she stated, “and _I don’t care_. I’m not his _mother.”_

“I can see why you were paying such close _attention_ to this one,” John hummed, fingering the petals with a gloved hand. “It’s so _pretty_. You put a lot of effort into keeping all these, huh?” He grinned at her, almost looking like his usual self. “It’s not just some financial _scheme_ for you, is it?”

“Of course it is,” Pamela stared at him, trying to keep her voice level; Bruce noticed her eyes kept flicking slightly downward, like she was watching the plant. “I breed and sell rare plants to collectors on the side.”

“Oh good! So this won’t bother you!”

In a swift move, John cut the blossom off the stem with the bowie knife one of the group upstairs had been sharpening.

The blossom fell to the table, and Pamela Isley looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

John picked up the blossom. “Let’s see – she’s _honest_ ,” he said playfully, plucking a petal from the stem, “she’s not!” He pulled another.

“STOP IT!” Pamela shrieked, making to rush at him – Bruce pulled her back and pointed the tip of the Batarang at her face. She glanced at it fearfully, but then looked back at the flower being torn apart in John’s hand, and it looked like she was watching a child die before her eyes.

“Stop that,” Bruce instructed; John hummed and held it still. _“Talk_ , or my partner and I crush _every plant_ in this place.”

Isley stared at the flower in John’s hand. “I… I don’t know what he’s planning,” she said quietly, her voice cracking slightly. John only touched the tip of a petal before she spoke again – _“But-!_ But I know… He’s building something. He didn’t say what, but he asked for some muscle - I hooked him up with some of Maroni’s old boys.” She shut her eyes and took a breath before glaring at John like he was a complete monster. “I hope the lot of them tears you limb from limb.”

Bruce forced Isley’s hands behind her back and zip-tied them. “Down on the ground,” he growled, pushing down on the top of her head. John pointed the grappling gun in her face with a smirk; a good insurance if she decided to try and elbow Bruce in the face.

Pamela shot them both a hateful glare as she knelt down, and it didn’t waver as her ankles were tied, too. “I won’t forget this,” she spat.

Bruce sent off a message to Tiffany regarding the coordinates of “Poison Ivy”’s headquarters from his gauntlet. He knew she’d get the word out before he could even get back in the car. “Tell it to the judge,” he taunted, leading the way out of the basement, not missing the sparkle in John’s eyes as he followed, the severed, torn orchid blossom having been carelessly thrown at Pamela Isley’s feet.

John gathered up the sticky bomb device before they hustled back to the Batmobile, and it wasn’t until the doors closed that he spoke, and when he did it was in a tone Bruce would almost call _revered_.

“So, what do we do now, _partner?”_ He asked, a definite glow on his face.

“We go look at some of the Maroni gang’s old haunts and see if we can find anyone recently hired,” Bruce said, the voice modifier in his cowl now disabled. He glanced at his recent text messages:  one from Tiffany giving the okay on Poison Ivy, and another from Iman with the last known location of the stolen Ryde car. “After we look into the motels in the red-light district. Crane might’ve stayed there.”

John laughed to himself, but for once he didn’t share the joke; instead, he pulled out a packet of jerky from the plastic bag he’d brought along. “I knew this would be a long night,” he said cheerfully, as if he was really looking forward to the whole thing.

*~*~*~*~*

It was well past one in the morning when Bruce arrived back home through the front gate, the Batsuit stowed away and the plates flipped back to red. The two patrol officers were only somewhat surprised to see him arrive back. Naturally, they reported nothing new, since John had been dropped off in the Batcave first.

Sore muscles were nothing new to Bruce. The old strained climb back up to his bed was just as annoying as ever. He honestly didn’t feel like he wanted to sleep, but after following several empty leads over the city and bruising a few heads alongside John, he did admit that he was physically exhausted. He knew lying down was better than nothing, and he still had to go to work in several hours like he didn’t have a double life. At least he wasn't starving, thanks to John thinking ahead and buying him protein-and-carb-filled snacks.

He forced himself to go through his usual nightly routine, despite the temptation to just flop into bed and lay there. He looked at the bruises on his back and ribs from where John had struggled against him under the influence of Crane’s drug, and decided not to bother putting the bruise-away cream on them, nor on the new ones forming on his shoulder from where one of the former mobsters had hit him.

When he did finally collapse onto the master bed in nothing but his boxer-briefs, his brain still decided to chat away at him.

There were no leads as to who exactly Isley had hired for Crane. Bruce cursed himself for not trying to work the specifics out of her. At least he knew she was arrested for drug possession and manufacturing, as well as smuggling illegal fauna.

There was no word on the whereabouts of Jackie Lant. Her car was missing, and she’d called into work sick. Her apartment hadn’t been visited in the entire time Bruce had his drone’s eye on it, and neither Tiffany nor Iman had seen anything when they looked into Jackie’s friends’ places, either. All Bruce knew was that she hadn’t called an ambulance to fetch her from Toxic Acres, that she hadn’t been admitted to a hospital, and that there was no sign of her body either in the Acres or in the Gotham River.

She was alive, _somewhere_ , and Bruce didn’t know what she was going to do next. He hoped she was just going to lie low until he caught Crane.

Jonathan Crane was nowhere to be found. His house was still empty. He didn’t seem to be staying at any of the motels – or hotels – around the red-light district or its surrounding streets, and nothing had come of a quick credit-card check. The Ryde driver the GCPD fished out of the River that morning had been shot in the head, and his car was so common that if Crane could’ve switched the license plate with anything and been completely invisible. They’d done a quick search of the warehouse district and found no sign of him there, either.

Bruce had the nagging feeling that he wasn’t going to find Crane until the doctor reared his head.

The billionaire rolled onto his stomach, shoving the anxious thought away as he pressed his cheek further into the plush black jersey pillowcase. There were a couple more places he could check tomorrow…

The bedroom door creaked, and Bruce’s eyes shot open, a second away from grabbing the billy-club under his pillow – he could see John’s messy hair in his dark silhouette.

“Bruce? You awake?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

“…can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Bruce noticed he closed the door behind him. Like he was planning to _stay_ there.

That definitely put a new light onto the situation. A tense thrill was building in his shoulders as John deigned to sit on the edge of the mattress, his back to Bruce.

John was only wearing his Arkham-regulated pants, and the pale white of his bare skin almost shone in the light streaming in from the window. Bruce saw several bruises forming, one of which was from where he’d gotten grabbed by the shoulder by the Poison Ivy goon, and several more where he’d gotten knocked into.

“…I don’t think I can sleep in that guest room,” John sighed. “I mean, I tried my _usual_ methods of sleep induction, but… It’s too big…and _empty_. I’m really not used to that.” His voice came out quieter and more contemplative. “I know it’s weird, but do you mind if I sleep in here?” He asked, turning halfway to look right at Bruce.

He felt trapped. If he said no, at the worst John would sulk, and at the best John wouldn’t get any sleep, and that was definitely worse for his mental health. John had mentioned before about how regular sleep cycles were supposed to help with that.

If he said yes, though, he’d know he was sleeping next to John, and there was the tiny worry in the back of his head that John might… _try_ something. Or at least roll over too much.

“I promise I’ll stay over on my side,” John muttered, not tearing his eyes away.

“Alright.”

A sweet smile stretched on his face. “Thanks, Bruce. You won’t regret this.”

“If you keep talking, I might.”

John giggled as he slid beneath the covers on the far side of the bed, flopping one of the extra pillows down between them. “There – a no-roll barrier,” he said as if he had to explain the concept to Bruce.

It did not escape Bruce’s attention that John had decided to lie facing him and rest his arm on top of the pillow. John had pulled the covers up to just underneath his armpits; Bruce could see John's sharp collarbone and the lean wiry muscle of his chest. (Bruce made sure not to look for more than a moment's curiosity would allow.)

God, John’s face was actually _his_ for the first time that whole night. Bruce had gotten used to seeing it in the natural makeup, but it was almost a relief to see it in its normal borderline-luminescent white. He looked like the man Bruce knew.

Acid-green eyes stared at him, flicking slightly and growing soft. “I…did want to talk to you about something, though. If it’s okay.”

“I suppose I’m still awake,” Bruce said in an attempt to lighten the tension in his arms. “Sure.”

“Do you ever…look _back_ on something, and think about the _worst_ thing that could’ve happened in that situation?”

He didn’t like to admit it, but he had. Usually in his worst moods, he’d think about how everything could’ve gone wrong. He’d usually think about everything he could’ve done better, too. “I try not to, but…sometimes, yeah.”

“I’ve been thinking about our fight a lot, lately,” John confessed, “At Ace. I used to think about it a lot when I got recommitted, but… You started visiting me,” he said softly, a light smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You remember when I told you I thought I’d messed things up for us?”

“Yeah.” It was Bruce’s first visit to John. He never forgot the sheer hopeful joy on John’s face upon seeing him. It was practically engraved in his memory.

“Ever since I started sessions with Crane, I kept going back to that night at Ace. He always tried to weasel my worst secrets out of me,” he said with a low scowl, “but when he started using that… _toxin_ on me… I kept…thinking about what could have happened back there. I… I _know_ I almost killed you.”

The sheer pain reading in John’s eyes was enough to make Bruce want to wrap his arms around him. It was beautiful and raw and honest, and Bruce found himself holding stock still, almost captivated by the expression.

“I kept seeing it. _Over_ and _over_ – it was like I could see myself throwing you over the railing or-or stabbing you, or...” Bruce saw tears welling up as John clenched the pillow between them. “I don’t want to come _close_ to that again, Bruce,” he managed to say, his voice starting to hitch. “I don’t… I don’t _want_ to kill you.”

Bruce threw his pride away and grabbed John’s hand in his. “You _won’t.”_

“You…you don’t know that,” John said with a light sob. “If…if I…go back to how I was… If I mess up...”

Bruce squeezed his hand, feeling the soft skin twitch under his fingertips. “I won’t pretend you’re perfect,” he said, honesty seeping through every word, “but I _know_ you, John. I _know_ you’re not going after Crane out of revenge, like you did with Waller. You reached out to me for help – but you were already trying to find a way to stop him _without_ resorting to just stabbing him with the nearest shiv.”

John sniffed, a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth like he was _almost_ smiling. “Yeah…”

“So you’re not the same person you were then, are you?” He soothed with a supportive smile. “Even if you feel you _are_ going backward, I know it won’t be to that same point.”

“Maybe…” he said with another sniff, looking more serious. “But Bruce, you know there are things I can’t ever really _stop_ , right? The auditory psychosis is pretty much going to stay with me the rest of my life,” he started, “and I’m not going to lie here and pretend my pulse wasn’t pounding a mile a minute when we were fighting those mobsters out there.” He sported a small knowing grin at him. “You know what _that’s_ like, though, don’t you…”

(Yes, he did.)

“…you know what’s funny? I used to think one bad day could turn a person completely upside down.” John managed to stroke his thumb against Bruce’s knuckle, sending a little shiver over the skin, and Bruce wondered if John knew how incredibly intimate that gesture felt as he stared softly at him from the pillow. “Especially after _Waller_ came to town… But…I never really thought things could go back _up_ after it. I guess it just…takes a while.”

Bruce knew there was something right in John’s line of thinking. It only took one day to turn _his_ life on its head, and he felt he knew, despite John having no memory of his life before Arkham, that something similar had happened to _him_. “Well…they say time heals all wounds.”

“How much passed before yours started to heal?”

He almost didn’t want to answer. The truth was that he wasn’t sure at all if he was ever going to _fully_ heal, despite knowing what his parent’s really were. Maybe it was because he knew the terrible truth about them that he wouldn’t ever heal right. Maybe he’d always have that miserable note in the background of his life. “…I’m still healing.”

“I didn’t say you stopped, buddy,” John chuckled with a knowing look. “Still…got good days and bad days, huh?”

“It feels like it, yeah.” Today…was definitely more of a mixed day. Looking at John across from him, though, all honest and open, and thinking back to how it felt to fight alongside him again, and _investigate_ with him, with that warmth and instant familiar comfort between that never faded away, he almost felt like he wanted to call it a _good_ day. “Today might have tilted things right-side up.”

John laughed, a genuine, humored one that was almost infectious. “Now I _know_ I’m rubbing off on you; that sounds like something _I’d_ say!”

John slipped his hand away and turned to lie on his back, still chuckling to himself. The warmth still burned in Bruce’s palm, and he found himself reluctant to pull his hand away at all.

John turned his gaze towards him once more, an all-too-familiar affection shimmering brightly in the green depths. It pulled Bruce in and made him feel like he should inch close enough to _feel_ the warmth and security it promised. “’Night, Bruce.”

“Goodnight, John.”

John turned over, leaving Bruce to stare at the bruises forming on his shoulders. There was the terrible temptation in his hands to shove the pillow between them aside and wrap his arm around the man’s middle so he could lean into that pale, battered back and bury his face in a head of soft, green hair.

There was a worse urge, one so vivid it almost made Bruce’s head spin – he could just reach out and _touch_ the bruises, feather-light, and trail his fingertips down the curve of spine until it arched with a pleased shudder, and Bruce could follow that trail with his mouth as far as John would let him.

Bruce turned his head away, the memory of John’s lips on his coming to the front of his mind, and he shut out the mental image of repeating that kiss right then and there, telling himself that he really shouldn’t feel that way towards someone who desperately needed support, nor to his best friend who he’d left scarred in more ways than one, and certainly not someone who was _both_.

It had been a long time since Bruce shared a bed with someone, and far, far longer when he shared one with someone he didn’t have sex with.

He hoped that was all it was. Just the _bed’s_ memory getting to him, and nothing else…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sexy-plant-person-in-her-late-twenties Ivy is OUT. Cougar-aged-mob-botanist Ivy is IN! Get with it, DC!
> 
> I reeeaaally wanted a different Ivy. I’m tired of the young, uber-sexy walking plant-human-hybrid that’s immune to all toxins and diseases; plants get diseases, too, and she’s so plant-like she should have some kind of physical humanizing weakness! It’s much more interesting to have a human who’s just built up a sort of immunity and uses her babies for weapons and business; I kept her serious environmentalist trait, though, because while I dislike the anti-hero thing she’s got going on lately and would love to see her as a straight-up villain again, we do have to relate to her somehow, and her love of nature is always going to be a good part of her. Since Harley’s older than her original counterpart, too, I figured it would be alright if they had a ten-year gap between them, so when Pam eventually goes to Black Gate, they’ll be pals. ;)
> 
> And Bruce! You complete _fool!!!!_ You should’ve kissed him!!! Why do you do this to yourseellllfff? D:
> 
> I'm sorry it took so long, but as you can tell, I had a lot to work on, and I’m doing my best to write the next chapter as quickly as I can while this nutty energy in my brain is still fresh. I’m trying to keep with my weekly schedule, but I hope you guys are okay with having a gap day, as appears to be the habit now. ( ._. ) I mean, no one yells at me or anything for being late, but I aim to please with my work, and part of that is being consistent. I shall continue to try my hardest! (*｀へ´*) 彡3 See you next weekend!!!


	11. Nightfall's Crescendo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UuGgGhhhhH! This chapter was so _frustrating!!_ But it’s done!!! Several days late, but it’s done!!! And I’m very happy with the results!!! So I will use as many exclamation points as I choose!!!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who’s supported this story so far with kudos, comments, and so on!! ✧˖°ˈ·*♡-(๑˃́ε˂̀๑ ) I love you very much!!!
> 
>  **Important Spoiler Tags:** blood (mention), canon-typical violence, swearing, John is so cute you might die

Bruce Wayne was used to waking up in the king-sized bed of the master bedroom. He had almost a lifetime of being woken up by Alfred’s dry British wit and the sun being thrust upon on shut eyelids as the curtains were parted, regardless of whether he’d brought a date home with him or not. Without his guardian-slash-butler, he’d gotten used to just leaving the curtains open and letting the rising sun stream in gradually as his phone’s alarm buzzed and beeped incessantly at him while Bruce tried to return to sleep for another five minutes.

Still, despite the number of people Bruce had brought to bed in his lifetime, he wasn’t used to waking up next to someone touching him. Certainly not when that someone was giving very low calls of his name as they gently shook his shoulder.

“ _Bruuuuce_ …”

Bruce, half-awake with mild alarm until he realized it was just John, pushed his face harder into the pillow underneath him, and found it somewhat difficult to breathe in. Since when had he switched his stomach-sleeper pillow with the plain downy feather…?

Did that matter? He was so _cozy…_ The pillow cushioned his chin and collarbone nicely, and he felt so _warm_.

He attempted to curl both his arms under the pillow, as he usually did, but felt something fairly hard and smooth stop his right arm like a blockade, digging in his skin at awkward angles.

Then he felt the hand that had been shaking him thwack his shoulder blade as John gurgled his name.

Bruce snapped awake, slipping straight into alert-mode, and turned his head only to find John’s next to him, with the other man glaring in alarm.

John’s long, pale neck sat in the crook of the billionaire’s elbow, his bicep pressing into the man’s windpipe.

Bruce all but yanked himself away, rolling onto his left shoulder and sitting up partway to get a look at the damage. “Oh my God, _John_ , I’m so _sorry_ ,” Bruce sputtered as John gave a shuddery breath. At least he didn’t seem bruised. “Are you _okay?”_

“At least you’re awake,” John strained, rubbing his throat with one hand, “I really didn’t want to have to push you off,” he said with a light laugh. “I was enjoying it up until now.”

He struggled to fight down the little burst of something pleasant that hit his chest as he tried to figure out how he’d even gotten into this position. He remembered laying on his right shoulder as close to the edge of the mattress as possible so he wouldn’t have the temptation to look at John, and he _vaguely_ remembered turning onto his back at some point.

He must have rolled over onto his left shoulder, and then rolled onto the pillow placed between them sometime in the night. Though he was curious how his arm managed to lay across John’s shoulders until now… (Had John _put_ his arm there? Or had Bruce wanted to touch him so badly his subconscious pushed his body there _for_ him? Both options were a nasty mix of unpleasant concern and thrill.)

John was lying on his back, hands repositioned over his stomach as he took in a deep breath, and turned his head to look right at Bruce again, the acid green of his eyes gleaming somewhat. “Well, aside from when you smacked my head a couple of hours ago.”

Oh, so it _was_ Bruce who’d put his arm near there… He felt guilt bite him; why did he always think John was going to try and touch him without asking? (He didn’t want to know that answer. He could easily picture John running those long white fingers over the scars on his forearm and bicep and _now was not the time to think about that_.) “You’ve…been _up_ for that long?”

“Oh, no, I’ve been dozing. And thinking,” he added, looking away with a raised brow as if he was questioning himself. “I think we should see _Jackie’s_ place.”

“So do I.” Bruce laid flat back onto the mattress. “I’d say we go _now_ , but I’ve got several more unavoidable meetings to go through… We should check her place after I finish going through the last of Maroni’s old gang. If we can’t weasel anything out of them, then Jackie’s apartment might at least hold Crane’s research. That should give us an idea of where he’s hiding out.”

“… _I_ could go,” John pointed out, now staring eagerly at Bruce.

“I don’t want you leaving the house without me.”

His eyes narrowed into slits. “Why _not?”_

It was too early in the morning to have such a serious conversation; Bruce answered the best he could. _“Because_ if something happens, or if someone spots you, I need to be there. I’d…worry about you, otherwise.”

 _“For_ me, or for _other_ people?” He asked with a hard stare. He was riling himself up as his brain twisted things.

Bruce concentrated on his next breath. “For _you;_ I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“Ha, tell that to your _brain,”_ John teased, the anger washing away like dirt caught in a downpour, “It certainly didn’t stop you from smacking me around in your _sleep…”_

Bruce managed a little smile back. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, I’ll just kick you a little next time you do it,” he said with a playful nudge of his foot into Bruce’s.

The billionaire felt the urge to just turn away and curl up under the covers so he could pretend he didn’t feel a tiny spark of warmth rush over his skin at the small action. He was beginning to hate how much he was enjoying even the tiniest of actions. He definitely hated how his mind kept wanting to rush everywhere it shouldn’t go at once.

“Bruce, you know what we were talking about in the car yesterday?” John asked, now focusing on the ceiling. “When we were on the way to Short Stack’s place? About what Crane’s moves were the night you rescued me?”

Bruce rubbed his eyes. His muscles had decided to carry over some of the ache from last night, and with the new emotional stress he was gaining, he really wanted another five or ten or fifteen minutes of sleep. “Yeah.”

“So you said the traffic cameras didn’t pick up his car when you got me here, right? His place is what…halfway between here and Arkham?”

“That’s what I said.”

“So…he parked the car in a nearby garage, hitched a Ryde home, picked up his drugs and his gun…” John was making hand gestures to indicate a car zooming across town, and now he made a gun motion with his hand. “Then he _shoots_ the driver, throws their body in the river, and goes to a motel on _sleazy street_ to sleep instead… So I was wondering – when did our little monster-in-training steal his stuff? When did she have the _time?”_

“You mean Jackie?” Bruce glanced at him, then up at the ceiling. “I don’t think they’re working together, if that’s what you’re suggesting. She was actually surprised to see him behind you in that hallway. Plus, we watched her get shot on camera. Neither of them could’ve known we were watching.”

“Well…I mean…they could’ve planned _part_ of it. She should’ve been able to get to his house right after he left. Otherwise, why didn’t she just follow him in and – I dunno, _stab him_ at the nearest convenience?”

“If she’d been invited inside there at one point, she might have known he had a gun,” Bruce suggested with a note of distaste. “A lot of Gotham residents do, nowadays. That .45 she was carrying looked like it was pretty old; I’d say it was inherited. If I were her, I’d have gone to get that first. She must’ve arrived at his house when it was already empty. She knew the alarm code and where everything was, so she didn’t have any problems finding Crane’s notes. She must have expected that Crane would’ve gone back eventually, if that note in his Arkham folder was any indication.”

“…so, she flipped through his stuff, figured out he’d be making more drugs, and what… _waited_ at Toxic Acres, until he walked by looking for the bombshell’s house?”

Bruce shot John a look.

“What? She’s not my _type_ , but I’m not _blind_ , buddy,” John said with a sly look. “You can’t tell me you didn’t think she wasn’t a _little_ attractive.”

Well, she _was_ , but her rap sheet, penchant for escaping justice, and apparent tendency to use of people purely for her own benefit put a complete damper on anything he might have found _remotely_ appealing. “She’s _really_ not my type,” he answered, catching a glimpse of John’s widening grin in response, “And I _do_ think Jackie was waiting for him. She must’ve known the street he’d be on, but not the house number, because he didn’t know it, either.”

John hummed. “I don’t think you _told_ me – what did you find on little Jackie?”

Bruce went through his mental case file. “I couldn’t find much. Born and raised in Gotham, went to G.U., has a FriendBook and SnapPic but rarely uses them… From what I could see half of her friends appeared to have done psychology routes alongside her, but they’re not all going for their doctorates, and the rest have mixed interests. There’s only three living in Gotham, and only one seemed to chat with her regularly. She looked to have a pretty average life, all things considered.”

“That’s… _fine_ , but that’s not really what I meant, Bruce,” John pouted. “What _type of person_ do you think she is? I mean, what do you _think of_ when you think of Crane’s house?”

Bruce almost felt like he was in some kind of psychological exam. “Uh, it’s…simple,” he started, thinking about the loads of empty space on walls and surfaces, “solitary,” he continued, thinking of the lack of photos, certificates, anything remotely personal on the surface, “focused… He’s a loner who has a fascination with horror and a drive for his ‘work’.” He thought back to the room of horror movies in his office, and how it looked so…carefully decorated. Everything had a place, and it was all behind a closed door. “He keeps his real self hidden away from others.”

“Right! I think so, too,” John beamed. “Of course, the whole ‘solitary’ and ‘focused’ thing is pretty obvious with just knowing the bare _minimum_ about him. So what about _Jackie?”_ He asked with a sharp look.

“She seemed…lonely. Secretive. Definitely _stubborn_ ,” he said with a frustrated sigh, the mental picture of her walking out of Crane’s with a taser in hand coming to mind. (Why did she have to _shoot_ him? Why didn’t she just take his work and run?) “I know she’s not related to anyone Crane has slandered against in the past, or any of Arkham’s doctors…”

John positioned his legs to dramatically cross one over the other’s bent knee, dragging some of the covers away from Bruce. “Hmm, so both are stubborn, secretive, and seemingly _alone_ … Sure puts their friends into perspective, doesn’t it?” He bounced his leg up and down a little. “Maybe Jackie’s friends are just as scummy as she is! Or maybe, they might not even really _be_ her friends…”

Bruce was growing uncomfortable, like John was unknowingly putting him under a magnifying glass.

He, too, was stubborn, private, and rather isolated, with few people he really called friends, despite the very long list of people he could say he knew. He also threw himself into his personal work and tended to collect things related to it, only to keep all of it in a room far away from prying eyes.

Then again, John was almost the same way, too, wasn’t he? He was just so much more expressive and loud, and so incredibly independent but yet so clingy. He was so _eager_ , so full of an _energy_ Bruce longed to have every day, so full of twists and turns that he was just… _fascinating_.

(Lant and Crane were alike, too. Both pairs dealt with a kind of broken bond, hadn’t they? But where Bruce sincerely cared about John to the point where he had reached back out to save them, Crane had no qualm about shooting Lant in cold blood and leaving her for dead.)

Bruce turned to look back at John, a new warmth stirring in his torso. The thinner man caught his gaze almost right away, his thoughtful pout turning to a small smile that reached the brilliant greens of his irises, pulling Bruce in, and he felt like he was being tugged closer and closer to shore.

The sun had barely started to rise, but Bruce noticed the shadows casting over everything through the window framed every inch of John in bars, and he was reminded that the time they had before he had to go back to Arkham was barely bigger than the time they had to catch Crane.

Bruce grabbed his phone from his nightstand – he’d slept through the alarm, which explained why John had woken him up in the first place – and scrolled through his calendar, calculating the amount of time he would need before he’d have to make any work-related appearances. “Do you feel up to going after the rest of Maroni’s crew before I have to go to work?”

“You have _time_ for that?” John’s eyebrows rose.

“I’m _Bruce Wayne_ – I can afford to be fashionably late sometimes,” Bruce said with a shrug.

John laughed, quickly tossing the blankets aside and standing, keeping his back to Bruce as he rolled his neck and shoulders. (Bruce watched the bones and muscle move under the bruised skin, not wanting to look away from the smooth movement even as it stirred something achingly _primitive_ in his loins.) “For _you_ , Bruce, I’m up for _anything_.”

*~*~*~*~*

East End was a large area of Gotham to search, but Bruce knew the ins and outs of the city almost like the back of his hand. Breaking into Caesar Hedlund’s place and taking him and his two fellow ex-Maroni gangsters down was a snap.

Just as much a snap as breaking the bones in Caesar’s thumb had been. (It was what he deserved after trying to shoot both of them. Thank _God_ John had on that bullet-proof vest.)

“I’m not going to ask again,” Bruce growled, looming over the former mobster cradling his hand as blood streamed down his chin from an earlier punch. “Who did ‘Poison Ivy’ hire yesterday?”

“Yeah, come on, Caesar,” John _(Joker_ , really, at times like these) called from the floor, still sitting atop a fallen man’s back like he was going to get up out of the cold knock-out at any minute, “Aubrey _said_ you’d know. Don’t make us go all _Ides of March_ on you,” he grinned, tapping the dull side of the stolen knife against his cheekbone as he scrolled through Caesar’s phone with his other hand. “Is iittt… _Norman?”_ He guessed, reading off the contact list. “ _Sam,_ maybe?”

Caesar glared over at him. “You’re _sittin’_ on ‘im, shit-for-brains.”

Bruce grabbed the partially broken hand and squeezed, glaring down at the shorter man.

Caesar let out a harsh squeak of pain. “Fucking… _hell!_ Ivy just-! She just called and asked if I _knew_ anyone up for a _job,_ okay! Someone to roll with a couple of her gals for a few days!”

Bruce recalled the ivy-vine tattoos on the women’s necks. _“Names.”_

“I dunno their names; just that two were gonna meet up with the guys somewhere…” Bruce didn’t even have to apply pressure to get Caesar to expand on his point. “Lee - he and Ivan were up for it. They called up Kip, but-but I dunno if he wanted in.”

Joker hummed, tapping away at the phone screen. “All here and accounted for, Batman. Ugh, _terrible_ photo of Kip, though. Lighting’s all _wrong…”_

“What kind of _job_ was it?” Bruce asked, watching the former mobster for any sign of further trouble.

“Some kinda pick-up, drop-off gig; I don’t ask for _deets_ if it’s none of my business,” Caesar said gruffly, glaring up at the cowl’s visors.

Bruce was satisfied he wasn’t lying. He let go and stepped away, hearing Joker stand behind him with a little noise like _ee-yup._ “You should save your friends the trouble and start _making_ it your business,” Bruce grumbled as he headed for the fire escape.

“Thanks for the _hand,”_ Joker teased, waving the phone at Caesar as Bruce prepared to grapple up to the rooftop.

The moment he was out on the landing, Bruce grabbed him firmly around the middle and launched them upward, the grapple line whistling as they flew up, barely audible over John’s delighted cackle. He couldn’t feel anything through the Batsuit, but somehow it still felt…nice.

It wasn’t a bad landing, despite the extra weight, but John did stumble a little, with his forehead smacking into the armored part of the suit and leaving a slight bit of foundation behind. For a moment they were close enough that Bruce could smell _cologne_ – the one with spicy wooden tones, like rum cocktails being passed around in the upscale jazz club he used to frequent. Bruce only ever wore that scent on _dates_. (John _couldn’t_ have known that…)

“Ha ha ha, _ow,”_ John laughed to himself, rubbing the spot on his head he’d hit with a gloved knuckle. “Sorry about that, buddy.”

“Don’t worry about it. Are you alright?”

“Ha, _mostly_ ,” John joked, tapping the side of his head with his fist like he was knocking on a door. His smile turned into a somewhat nervous grin. “You know, I, uh, meant to _ask_ this morning, but… Can you find a way to get my meds?” John asked with slight shrug. “I’m not _super_ worried, or anything,” he explained hastily, “I know I can go a few days without them before anything _bad_ starts to happen, but… I just want to…make _sure,_ you know?”

Bruce was surprised he’d actually asked. He’d only thought of it briefly, himself, but he’d already planned to ask him if he wanted them later that day. (Well, less like _asking_ and more like _persuading,_ but still.) “I figured I might be able to reproduce them as injections. I wanted to make sure the anti-toxin didn’t have any side-effects with them first.”

“Oh! Well, uh… Okay. Do you know which ones I-?”

“I’ve got the list downloaded from Arkham.”

John’s surprise turned to skepticism. “You didn’t look at anything _else_ in there, did you?”

(Past medical records didn’t count, did they? They were in the same section, after all.) “No.”

“Good,” he nodded, holding Caesar’s phone out to him with a small smile. “’Cause if you _did_ , you’d owe me a whole _Batsuit_ -worth of an apology,” he teased, his lips curling to show his teeth.

Bruce shoved the smidge of guilt away and scrolled through the contact list. Kip and Lee were more built than Ivan, but Bruce remembered all three of them as being fairly decent in a fight. Maroni used to have them move supplies and knock heads, and Ivan was a particularly good guard for doors, as he had a keen sense of hearing and the build of a linebacker.

Bruce texted Tiffany from his wrist gauntlet first. _Sending contact details from another phone in a moment. Ivy hired them for Crane. Will be in later._

> K.

John peered over at the short screen. “Does she always give one-word answers?”

“Sometimes.” Usually when she was upset with him or short on time, but he didn’t want to tell him that that. He sent all the contact files over with a few swipes on the stolen phone. (It was less than a year old, too, and not exactly cheap. Caesar was clearly doing alright for himself…)

John sighed, stepping away. “Do you _really_ have to go in today? Actually _be_ there?”

Bruce glanced over at him. He wasn’t looking at him, for once – he was staring out at the skyline with his arms folded across his chest. The smog and stormy gray clouds made the morning dismal and dark, with the orange streetlamps below giving the impression of little candles trying to break the gloom.

“Yes.”

“Your house is lonely without you.”

Wind whipped at Bruce’s cape, sending the belt ties on John’s trenchcoat flapping along with it.

“It…doesn’t quite _feel_ like you. Parts of it does, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “There’s the cave, of course. That’s definitely _you;_ but it’s only _part_ of you. It’s like…some of the things you have laying around don’t _belong_ there. Like that weird _cube_ thing you have in your office,” he said, shooting him a look.

“…I bought that from a charity auction.”

John wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue. _“Eeugh_ – I don’t know why you bothered to _keep_ it! It’s just a shiny black cube on a metal stand with a _hole_ in it. It’s not you at _all!”_

Bruce folded his arms. He didn’t hate that piece, even if he _did_ buy mostly for show. (Still, hadn’t he been _waiting_ for John to pull his place apart? What was he nervous for?) “And what _is?”_

“…your _bed_ is very you,” John answered without any trace of shame. “It’s got a sturdy traditional frame, and a pretty comforter you just want to run your hands over,” he explained, making a motion with his fingers in the air. Bruce felt very much like he wanted to grapple away, if only to escape the feeling that was brewing underneath the Batsuit. “And underneath that, there’s that wooly middle blanket, and then there’s those _sheets,”_ he said with a grin, holding his hands up in almost a surprised motion. “Dark, smooth, _resilient…_ All atop a mattress you could _lie_ on _forever…_ Just sitting on the top of it all, or pushing your hand into the covers gives you an _idea_ of the whole thing, but you won’t _really_ know unless you pull everything back and _lie_ in it.”

John breathed, not really seeing the city before them, and gave a little sigh that almost sounded… _pleased_. The kind that someone usually gave in the midst of after-glow. Bruce could only stare, not trusting himself to move or speak; he focused entirely on the man in front of him, the tender look sitting in his knowing face, and even with the make-up on, Bruce saw John underneath, plain as day. (Was this how John felt all the time, when _he_ looked at _him…?)_

“Plus, the color scheme is very you,” he added with a little tilt of his head, “Though I’d kill to see you wear that red and gold pattern on something!” John laughed, looking up at him like he wasn’t staring at white lenses in a mask. “Uh, not _literally,_ of course,” he added with a little wave, “I wouldn’t…”

“I know what you meant.” Bruce never felt so grateful for the voice modifier making his voice sound gruffer than it really was.

“Right, sorry,” John fumbled. “I just… It feels like whenever we’re together, there’s always some kind of _time limit_ to it, you know? And we can’t exactly say everything we want to in Arkham… At least if you were home, I could talk to you sometimes.”

If he didn’t have the Batsuit on, Bruce would’ve pulled him in and held him right there. Instead, he reached out and gently grasped John’s shoulder until John looked back up at him, the wind whipping anew. “I know,” he said simply, hearing the Bat’s voice come out as soft as it could go; he held out Caesar’s phone in his other hand, watching John’s eyes glance down at it questioningly. “At least you can still text me.”

“…won’t they be tracking your phone?” John asked, acid greens gleaming with hope as he grasped the cell phone like a treasured present.

Bruce forced his hand to slide away back to his side, doing his best not to linger on any space too long. “Only the one they know about.”

“Ha! Of course…”

“I’ll drop you off at the cave,” he said, preparing the grappling gun to fire to the next building so they could be back in the alleyways. “Is there anything you want me to get while I’m out?”

John looked around the rooftop, pursing his lips and making a long humming noise. _“Sweet ‘n’ Sour Shrimp Heaven,”_ he replied with an earnest smile on his lips, “and some egg rolls.”

Bruce stared, wondering if it was actually some kind of joke.

“If I think of anything else, I’ll just text you.”

*~*~*~*~*

Giving John permission to text him during Bruce’s working hours had its ups and downs.

On the downside of it, John’s texting habits seemed to be either once every thirty seconds, or once every hour, and it kept Bruce on edge. Would he text right when he was supposed to be paying attention to an important detail during a meeting, or when Bruce actually had time to himself? Would it be something useful, like notifying him that the cluster sticky bombs were recharged and ready to use, or just something like how much money someone on ListIt was trying to get for a “realistic” Batman costume with the wrong colors?

On the upside, though, Bruce had never been so awake during a normal working day. John kept surprising him – he’d taken the time to not only learn how to fly one of the drones in the cave, but to keep checking up on Crane and Lant’s houses. At one point, he’d even sent a video of the spare drone in the cave doing a series of loop-de-loops before giving a somewhat dramatic landing, and at the end even Bruce managed to chuckle a little when John’s gloved hand came into the shot with a thumb’s up.

He actually found himself texting John without prompt, which made the other man use an excessive amount of emoticons in reply, as if he was genuinely surprised Bruce wanted to know what he was up to. (He didn’t give a real answer, of course – it was “a secret project”, apparently.)

He should have known the mood was too good to last.

There he was, barely listening to the wrap-up of the quarterly sales meeting, and suddenly he received three texts in rapid succession:

> Main Street Diner’s been hit.
> 
> Initial report hints at me being a suspect.
> 
> CCTV show cops everywhere.

Bruce might as well have dropped from a rooftop with no cape or grappling hook. He rapidly started scrolling through Gotham news sites.

He only had to look at a short clip of the outside of the diner on mute to get the gist of it. A group of people burst out of the Diner’s glass door, running into traffic, stabbing others with steak knives, going every which way and causing chaos. Bruce could barely see the windows, but he knew blood spatter streaks when he saw it.

Crane had struck, and he’d decided to use his Fear Toxin on a whole crowd of people at once.

“Mr. Wayne? Do you have anything you’d like to add?”

Bruce blinked, realizing where he was, and gave the man at the head of the table his firmest look of attention. “No.”

Even without looking, his fingers slid over the screen’s keyboard with complete precision.

_I’m heading there asap. Stay in the cave. I want you on comm-link._

*~*~*~*~*

The rain had started five minutes after Bruce changed into the Batsuit. It came down hard, hitting the surface of the Batmobile like pellets, and Bruce almost felt like he’d gone back to his first night out in the car. It’d been wet and slippery, and he was still thrilled by the way Lucius had thought of everything…

The only major difference was that instead of Alfred waiting on the communicator in his cowl, it was John.

When Bruce had first called him from the car, he’d heard footsteps on metal, which meant John was pacing, and his short answers to Bruce’s questions gave the impression he was in an agitated mood. Bruce decided to let him ride it out, rather than press and anger him further. He figured it was a combination of the unfounded accusations against him and the fact that he couldn’t come along to investigate with him in person.

The truth was, Bruce was a little grateful he wasn’t there. It would make talking to Jim Gordon a lot easier.

The police blockade out in the street wasn’t very wide, due to heavy traffic, so Bruce ended up parking a good distance away. Bruce dropped down into the alley behind the Main Street Diner with a quick deploy of his cape to soften the landing, not minding the rain pelting away at him, and spotted the reinstated commissioner right away, smoking under an umbrella and talking to a couple of officers by the back door.

“Gordon,” he said, sweeping slowly towards the wide-eyed officers, mindful of the way they reflexively went for their pistols. “I’m here to help.”

The aging police commissioner straightened, his cigarette drooping between his fingers for a moment as he took in the sight of the Batman for the first time in months. “Hold it,” he instructed the two officers beside him. “Kev’, Bill - take a walk for a minute.”

With mutterings of assurances, both officers moved away, and they were alone.

“This is some week,” he grumbled, tossing the cigarette onto the wet pavement. “Six months of radio silence and suddenly you come running out of the woodwork like it was just a vacation.”

Bruce didn’t want to rise to that kind of bait, so he chose to stay silent.

Jim Gordon sighed, tilting the black umbrella back as if to get a better look at him in the pathetic security light. “Look, I know the whole thing with Waller and that Joker character must have hit you pretty hard. I figured you’d decided to take the retirement in my place. So I gotta know – is this some kinda special occasion, or what?”

Bruce wasn’t really sure, himself, so he said what sounded right. “I’m reconsidering my options.”

“Well, I hope you consider it _soon,”_ Jim scoffed, his mustache twitching, “Dunno if you noticed, but it’s gotten worse around here without you. If it weren’t for the GCPD’s regular anonymous informant, we’d be back up shit creek with a broken paddle. I know they’re a friend of yours - they the reason you decided to come back to work?”

 _(No, it was a different one, sitting in the cave underneath his house, and the fact that a dangerous threat to Gotham just happened to have hurt him first.)_ “Someone reached out to me. Their information lead to a doctor by the name of Jonathan Crane; he’d been doing illegal experiments on patients at Arkham. I’m sure this is more of his work.”

Jim was staring down his nose at him, almost accepting of the information despite the sternness in his tone. “I’m guessing this _‘someone’_ is currently hiding out at your belfry?”

John’s light laugh came over the ear-piece – it figured he’d choose then to come on. _“Did he make a joke?”_ He paused, giggling to himself a little. _“I knew I’d like this guy!”_

Bruce ignored both of them. “I couldn’t come forward until I had something concrete to give you. A lot of evidence is currently missing.”

The commissioner sighed. “Let’s get inside before I need another cigarette.”

Bruce followed him in, mindful of the rainwater collected on the collapsing umbrella. Several members of the crime scene investigation unit were still working – and with good reason. Yellow number markers littered the floor, some making shapes that looked very much like outlines of people.

There were blood spatters _everywhere_. Walls, floors, counters, tables, chairs – all in different sizes and of different lengths. Bruce could spot the artery strikes right away, and almost wanted to wince at the sight of one long spatter marking a paper jack-o-lantern’s grinning face.

But neither Bruce nor Batman were squeamish. He was used to seeing and smelling blood, and it wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed a massacre. He reminded himself that he was going to get justice for all of this.

“We’ve got about five victims in the hospital, and two sitting in the I.C.U. Most of them we’d nabbed off the street, but one of the line cooks was smart enough to shut himself in the walk-in freezer when all hell broke loose. He got a nasty burn from a frying pan, but he’s the only one still sane, so we’re going to keep him for questioning.”

“How are the ones alive acting?” (He _knew,_ he could still see John’s anxious, frightened face, but he had to _check…)_

“Scared out of their wits. All of them seemed to be hallucinating; the last one we caught wouldn’t stop muttering about spiders.”

 _“Sounds about right,”_ John grumbled from Bruce’s ear. _“I looked at the footage Tiffany sent you from the security camera over the counter, by the way. It’s why I was so, uh…quiet, earlier. I had to go dunk my head in some ice.”_

Jim folded his arms, casting a weary look at the dining hall. “We’ve got at least another dozen dead, too. Stabbed, strangled, beaten to death – it was like a prison brawl broke out in here. The owner got his face smashed into the grill, for Christ’s sake…”

“Have you checked the camera footage?” Bruce asked.

_“Hey, I just – oh, sorry, you were talking to him… My bad.”_

Jim sighed. “As far as we can tell, there were some kind of gas bomb that went off in the front. We found two small propane tanks wired to timers under the tables, but they’ve been wiped clean, and it all seems to be made with stuff you can find at a hardware store.”

“He turned his experimental toxin into a _gas…”_ Bruce muttered to himself. “The tanks must have been modified to pump out the gas at a higher rate. How small were they?”

“The kind you could conceal in a bag or a shoe-box.”

 _“Ooh! Check the kitchen!”_ John said excitedly, sounding more like his usual self. _“Gordy said that guy who hid in the freezer wasn’t hit, right? But if the other kitchen gurus got a face-full, he must’ve been out of the way.”_

Bruce stepped carefully over the yellow markers on the tiled floor of the kitchen, ignoring the smell of burned meat that hit his nostrils. There was a service window between the kitchen and the front counter, but it wasn’t especially big. Even with two large canisters pumping gas into the room, there _had_ to have been a third in there. “I’m assuming your men checked in here, Jim?”

“Yeah, C.S.I. finished up there first.”

“He must have had one in here…” Bruce muttered to himself, kneeling carefully to get a better look at the whole floor. There had to have been _something_ …

Could there have been something put in the air vent?

No, the freezer was on the far end, and the air vent wasn’t far from it. And why would Crane not just use the vents for the whole place?

_“Hey, Batman - Caesar had said his friends were assigned a ‘pick-up, drop-off’ job, right? I think I see that, uh, Ivan guy sit at the table in the corner like an hour before the thing went off. Gordy’s right, he’s got a biiig paper bag with him…”_

Bruce touched his earpiece – not that he needed to, but it gave Jim the idea he was on the line with someone, and he didn’t want him to know John had been listening the whole time. “Eagle One, did you see any suspects go around the back of the counter in that footage?”

“You’ve got _another_ assistant?” Jim asked from the doorway with a cynical kind of surprise. “I’m beginning to think your ‘loner’ shtick was just a phase…”

“ _Ha ha – nope! Oh, hold on, I need to back up… There’s a girl in a really big hoodie who sits down at the other end of the place about the same time as Ivan… Man, her calves are thick. You could crush a small melon with those things…”_ He seemed to sense Bruce’s glower over the phone, because he continued quickly. _“She, uh, doesn’t stay very long. Probably one of Ivy’s gal-pals. I’m not seeing either of the other guys our little rat mentioned, either.”_

“Someone must have come in through the back.”

_“Well, I guess they could've stolen a uniform, but… You’d think someone would’ve noticed him putting a bomb in there. Kinda hard to miss a gas can wired to a timer, isn’t it?”_

Yes, someone _would_ have noticed a gas canister sitting in the open air…

Unless it didn’t _look_ like a gas canister.

Bruce scanned the room, looking for anything that could hold gas properly. He honed in on the fire extinguisher on the bottom shelf of the rack by the industrial stovetop. He rose and marched towards it; its handles weren’t closed, but there was a broken piece of rubber on the floor behind it not unlike a rubber band, and upon closer inspection, the nozzle was pointed towards _him_ , rather than at the wall. But how did the pin get pulled?

He knelt to look. What looked like a kitchen timer was clinging to the bottom of the metal shelf above, a retractable id-holder holding a white extinguisher peg attached to the bottom of the device, a piece of metal dangling just out of reach of the cord. The timer must have gone off, and the metal arm let the retracting cord go, freeing the pin… The arms must have been preemptively closed, but the rubber band gave way sometime later, closing the valve.

“He rigged a fire extinguisher,” he explained to both of them at once. “It’s far enough away from the freezer to explain why the line cook managed to escape; it might not have been emptied, either.”

He ran his glove scanner over the surface of the shelf and extinguisher. Two partial prints sat on the handle – his gauntlet ran through the Batcomputer’s database.

_“Hmm, looks like Kip decided to join in, after all, huh…”_

There might have been something else on the canister… Something to indicate where it came from…

Bruce picked it up carefully and examined it. He had a feeling it was stolen from either the diner itself or the motel Crane had stayed at previously; the date stamped on it certainly told him it wasn’t _bought_ recently.

“Jim – I’ve got fingerprints from one of Maroni’s old thugs on here. I believe Pamela Isley hired him and a couple of others for Dr. Crane.”

The commissioner’s eyebrows furrowed. “Figures you’d have the head start on us. I’ve got Isley down at precinct hopped up on possession and drug-running charges; I’ll see if we can’t squeeze something else out of her. I’m guessing your _assistant_ is the one who helped beat up her crew last night?”

Bruce wasn’t going to get himself stuck into that trap, either. “I’ve acquired more help over the past few months.”

The older man sighed. “Look, I can get past the fact that you’re housing an escaped mental patient. You’ve never shied away from helping people out when they need you, and I can believe he went looking for you. But I’m not sure I can look the other way if you’re bringing him along for the ride. No matter _who’s_ working with you – ‘John Doe’; our mutual informer friend; or whoever else you’ve got in your Rolodex – I need to know I can _trust_ them. And after seeing what happened at Ace Chemicals, I’m not sure I want to put my faith in a guy whose mental breakdown ended like that…even _if_ his doctor says he’s been improving.”

Bruce felt like his heart was being squeezed. He knew Jim would be apprehensive, just like Tiffany and Avesta, but it still hurt. “Whether I bring him along or not, he’s the best chance we have at finding Crane. I trust him with that.”

John gave a slightly choked noise over the ear-piece, like he was holding back tears.

“So this… _Dr. Crane_ organized all this? What for?”

Bruce breathed deep. “He’s escalated to doing crowd experiments of his fear-inducing drug. He tested it on Arkham patients under the name ‘FDR’. He also calls it ‘Fear Toxin’.”

“FDR? What is that, a _joke?”_ Jim scoffed. “Guy’s got a warped sense of humor to be referencing the guy who said there was nothing to fear but fear itself…”

John gave a watery kind of laugh. _“Oh,”_ he sniffed, _“I get it…”_

“You sure it’s him?” Jim continued, eyeing the Batman scrupulously.

He was trying so, _so_ hard not to just listen to John’s breaths, evening out like he was doing his best to calm down. “Yes.”

“Right. I’ll see if I can put an A.P.B. out on him. I’ll get the lab to go over that extinguisher with a fine-toothed comb and put word out on Maroni’s old running crew. I hope this doctor isn’t the type to use ‘em and dump ‘em.”

“I’ve got someplace else I need to check,” Bruce said, moving to leave, “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

He had his hand on the back door when Commissioner Gordon called out to him.

“Batman?”

Bruce turned, catching sight of Jim pulling out his radio.

“It’s been good having you back on the team.”

Bruce allowed the tiniest of smiles to seep through his stalwart facade. “Likewise.”

He pushed through the heavy metal door, back into the pouring rain, and made sure he put some distance between himself and the cops guarding the diner before he switched off the voice modifier.

“John?”

_“Yeah?”_

He was calm. Good. “I’m coming to pick you up. We’re going to go look at Jackie Lant’s apartment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, I know you guys wanted some cuddling action, buuut I figured John's used to sleeping in small spaces, so he's not the type to roll around - Bruce, though, is used to big beds, and seems to canonically prefer to sleep on his stomach, so _him_ tossing until he's comfortable made sense. Besides, John definitely didn't mind what he woke up to... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> BTW, it took me so long to write this because I had the idea to include a prelude to the Diner Incident, which has been in the plan since the very beginning. By the time I finished planning the new idea, I realized that it ruined _everything_ I was setting up, so I had to scrap it and come up with some material to fill in the rest of Bruce's day instead. I'm super pleased with how it all turned out in the end, though, even if it did take a lot longer to do than I really wanted. I hope everyone liked it! ♡ฅ(ᐤˊ꒳ฅˋᐤ♪)
> 
> I'll try to get that little list of changes I made uploaded this week. (._.) I keep meaning to and keep getting distracted... But I have a new one to add, anyway - you know how I try to use funny names for recognizable brands? I forgot I actually used fb in plain sight, so I'm fixing that asap.
> 
> Also, show of hands: who guessed at why Crane dubbed his drug "FDR" in Arkham?


	12. A Laughing Matter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for being late, but fate had other plans for me these past two days, apparently... :T
> 
>  **Important Spoiler Tags:** past suicide attempt (mention), death (mention)

The ride to Jackie Lant’s apartment was fast and quiet. Bruce wasn’t sure why, as John had a tendency to talk a lot when they were riding around before, and would talk about almost anything.

John was _mulling_ over something, and when asked, John had shrugged and said “just some things”.

Like Bruce couldn’t worry over a response like that. He figured it had to have been what happened at the Main Street Diner. John’s street make-up was back on, and done just as impeccably this time, but with the addition of heavy black eyeliner, so it wasn’t as if he’d left in a rush.

Jackie’s apartment was high up in a building that had definitely seen better days. The neighborhood wasn’t one of the best, either – Bruce had visited it many times, always late at night, and he was sure he’d been on the other side of the apartment building on a case long, long ago.

They entered through the rooftop door, which it seemed no one had bothered to lock. (Not that Bruce was surprised – he was the only one in the city who made a habit of flying roof-to-roof, and anyone who _walked_ up to any building’s roof at night was up to nothing good ninety-five percent of the time. Raids by blimp or helicopter were few and far between, thankfully.)

“Kind of reminds me of Arkham,” John (no, _Joker,_ they were outside together) commented in a hushed voice as he shook the rainwater off his borrowed fedora. The stairwell was vaguely reminiscent of the asylum’s, but rather than white-washed brick, it was bare and aged, and it didn’t have the large glowing florescent lights hanging on the walls. There was just a small light in the middle of the staircase leading down.

“Her place is just on the fourth floor,” Bruce said, leading the way with light steps. He was always careful about stairs; he never knew if someone was sitting below a set.

The metal door leading into the hallway was lighter than it looked. Peeling red wallpaper greeted them, and the dark wooden floor had seen better days, but it wasn’t the _worst_ apartment building Bruce had ever set foot in. It’d be a four out of ten, if he was feeling generous… The water stains on the ceiling certainly detracted from that generosity.

“If I hadn’t been spoiled by your place, I’d say this was pretty nice,” John muttered, grinning over at Bruce.

Bruce bit back the comment that it was only because John had no decent standard of living, and gave a very small smile in return. He remembered the little place John had made for himself back at the Old Five Points – the _Ha-Hacienda,_ as he had called it. He’d taken what was a run-down little shack and thrown his heart into it, putting up pictures and lights like it was a real home.

He’d tried going back there the day after John had fallen off the bridge, but John had somehow managed to smuggle most of his things out of there to one of his friend’s places, and now they were impossible to find. It hurt to think about.

Jackie Lant had the corner apartment, overlooking the back. Working the lock-picks in the door took so little time Bruce found himself thinking he should find a way to pressure someone into making a policy that apartment managers had to upgrade their client’s locks every few years.

The beam of light stretching in from the hallway cast his shadow over the place, but he could already see it was much homier than Dr. Crane’s, despite it being smaller than Bruce’s master bedroom.

He stepped inside, John _(Joker)_ following him and immediately making a line for the dresser. Bruce decided to look elsewhere.

Posters were plastered and pinned all over the walls, most of which were for movies or famous plays. There were also over a dozen flyers mixed in, like those handed out for amateur gigs, and they all seemed to be for copyright-infringing shows at Gotham University or South End High School; the dates were in line with Jackie’s educational attendance.

There was a cheap wire shelving unit holding all matter of things – books, DVDs, and bits of décor that almost all looked like they came right out of the Halloween section of a D.I.Y. store. Casting a look over at the bed (it didn’t have a frame, it was just two mattresses piled on top of one another, but _was_ a bed) told him it wasn’t just a seasonal thing, either; there were two different pumpkin-shaped cushions and the blanket on top was patterned with smiling jack-o-lantern faces.

At least she had a variety of different tastes:  romance, fantasy, popular YA literature, used psychology textbooks… There were some horror novels in the mix, but it looked more… _pulpy_ than anything. Her little movie collection had a few of the same titles as Crane’s, too, but they looked to be mostly either from the more popular franchises or cheesy b-movies.

Bruce cast a look at the kitchen unit – nothing spectacular, but he should go through the cupboards, just in case she’d hidden anything in there…

“Bats,” Joker called, frowning at the strung-up photos in front of the desk on the back wall, “can your gadgets scan faces?”

“Something like that,” Bruce answered, stepping towards him. Some photographs were placed directly above the desk, adjacent to the window surrounded by string lights with jack-o-lantern faces. They were hung up by laundry clips on wire wrapped around a combination of nails and tiny peel-and-stick hooks. Looking at them made Bruce think of John’s photos, all arranged in a smiley-face wherever he went.

The pictures were all group photos, varying in age, and it didn’t take a genius to notice that the last several pictures all held the same people, but dwindling in number. Bruce clicked a button on his visor, and waited as the Batcomputer scanned the faces he honed in on and ran through its database of connections to news and GCPD files. Jackie Lant was easily recognizable, due to her curly red hair, but in a few pictures she was very young. The oldest photo was just of her and another little girl, looking up into the camera with the sort of wide-eyed innocence that only children could really have.

He checked his gauntlet, and decided to go from the bottom to the top.

Richard Seed, deceased.

Zoe Smith, deceased.

Angela Maynard, deceased.

Deceased, deceased, _deceased._ It was just one after another, two of which happened one month apart, and half of the death records were pulled from the GCPD – car accidents, crossfire shootings, muggings gone wrong... The earliest death was almost fifteen years ago, when a missing girl was found wrapped in a rug by a dumpster.

Bruce cast a look back at the photo of the seven-or-eight-year-old Jackie Lant, and remembered her mention of how the formative years played a lot into one’s psyche.

The only people left alive came from the middle bunch of photos:  Dean Norton, who still lived in Gotham, and Veronica O’Reilly, who hadn’t lived there for a little over a decade. Dean showed up in only _one_ photo near the end of the bunch, too, where he was with three other people who had passed away within the last four years.

Bruce thought back to the list of contacts she had on her FriendBook. He didn’t remember seeing any R.I.P. posts or anything like it in her timeline, but he’d checked out the people she contacted most on there, and none of _them_ were dead… “Have you seen any other photos?”

“Just two on her dresser – pretty sure it’s her parents and… I dunno, an older guy, so maybe an uncle?”

“I’m beginning to think you were right,” Bruce grumbled, clicking off the scanning feature in his cowl, “Jackie Lant’s current friends might not really be _friends._ Almost all the people shown here are dead.”

 _“Yikes,”_ Joker winced, “and I thought I had it bad, with most of mine in jail…”

“Did you find anything in the dresser?”

“A few spare bullets and a box of condoms. You know, the _essentials,”_ he joked.

Bruce cast a look down at the desk. A laptop and a tray of loose papers. “Check the closet. If she hid Crane’s stuff here, the only spot left is there or the kitchen.”

“On it,” Joker said confidently, swinging open the flimsy panel doors behind them. “Though I would think I’d scatter them all over the place… You know, put the drive in a bag and tape it inside the toilet tank. That kind of thing.”

Bruce flicked through the pile of paper – mostly the bills for rent, insurance, and student loans, at least two of the latter bearing ‘OVERDUE’ stamps. “Then check there, too. Follow your instinct.”

“Ha ha, _okaaayyyy,”_ John drew out quietly, shifting through a pile of clothes. Jackie seemed to prefer yellows and reds; Bruce remembered her work clothes looking rather nice, and wondered if she hadn’t spent more money on them than anything else.

Bruce opened the laptop on her desk, mindful of the speakers she had plugged into it knocking over the well-loved stuffed cat sitting there. The lock-screen was password-protected and the hint was “check the handbook”.

 _Handbook_ …? Hadn’t he seen something with that?

Bruce returned to the shelf – The Handbook for the Recently Deceased sat next to an empty candlestick holder molded in the shape of a raven.

Sure enough, it was a blank journal with a list of contact information (birthdays and death dates were listed, too, much to Bruce’s surprise) and passwords to different sites – banks, her social media, and even a bloggr account – with the laptop’s password written on a sticky note in the front:  _Pumpk1nPr1nc355_.

“Hey, Batman, I _found_ somethiiing,” Joker called, tugging out a heavy-looking lock-box. “Hidden right under the loose floorboard, how cliché… Ooh, you looking into her laptop?”

“I figured it might give an insight into her, if she didn’t have Crane’s work copied onto it.”

“Right. You look at that, I’m going to poke around her bathroom for a key to this thing.”

Bruce wanted to question that, but Joker left without another word, a confident smile on his lips.

Jackie Lant’s laptop hummed to life. It seemed it had been in hibernation mode – her browser was still open to her email.

Bruce read through the headers:

> New post from _Batman Watch_
> 
> New post from _Gotham-Sucks_
> 
> [!] Application for job #P283451
> 
> [!] Application for job #E7990S2
> 
> We’re sorry to inform you that your…
> 
> New post from _Gotham-Sucks_
> 
> RE:  St. Mary’s Mental Ward Position...
> 
> RE:  Hopkins Mental Clinic application
> 
> BatmanChick96 replied to your post
> 
> [!] Application for job #8714E03

Bruce could deduce without even opening any of them that the application notifications were rejections. Judging by the bloggr notifications, she was likely trying to leave the city. Scrolling down further and seeing the list of rejected applications amidst the odd bank statement and old blog notifications told him she’d been trying to leave Gotham for _months._

That explained why she wanted to steal Crane’s work – she must have figured that she could take it and run out of the city, publish it with her name attached, and make something out of it. In her mind, he supposed, she had bills to pay and not much to lose.

He opened her file browser; thankfully it looked like she was the type to keep all her files fairly organized. There was what looked like a folder for her old school documents, a folder for her Arkham internship-employment, tax folders… A quick search said the only thing with Crane’s name in it was a term paper on Working Through Grief and some copies of his work, though they weren’t opened in over a year.

Looking under her recent files, she had a video labeled with a date from several days ago, and she _did_ have a webcam… Maybe she was the type to _vlog._

“Whelp, nothing in there… What’d you find?” Joker asked, coming to stand behind Bruce and lean on the back of the rolling office chair.

“Hopefully, a video log.”

“Well press play, then! Maybe she’ll just _tell_ us where she stashed Crane’s stuff. I’m going to be mad if it’s not in that safe…”

Bruce double-clicked the video dated several days ago.

Jackie Lant sat in front of the desk, pushing back the laptop screen until she was entirely in view. She threaded her fingers together under her chin, on level with her hair, and gazed right at the camera with an intense focus as she breathed deep.

> “Normally, I try not to talk too _openly_ in these sessions, in case I have one of those Agents monitoring me like everyone seems to think we do, but just in case I fail miserably, or Professor Crane decides to bury me in his backyard, I want to say something. I’m probably going to regret this video later… Then again, if everything works out, I’m going to delete this and pretend it never happened anyway.”

Jackie shrugged, folding her arms on top of her desk.

> “There’s…no going back for me, now. I had to keep telling myself that if I did… If I _did,_ then I might as well just throw myself off of the bridge tomorrow. I’m in too deep. I _know_ too much. I’ve… _seen_ too much.”

The young woman scowled slightly down at her hands.

> “I can’t pretend that I’m not going to regret anything. I already regret a lot. I don’t think I’d be at this point if I’d chosen a theater major,” she said with a slight hint at a smile. “But in case something happens, I just really want to say – _I’m_ the one who tried to kill Dr. Jonathan Crane, and stole all of the research that would’ve given evidence pertaining to his unethical experiments at Arkham Asylum. I’m hoping someone will find his bloated corpse floating around the docks or face-down in a pool of his own blood in the street,” she continued with a nasty curl of her lip that lasted all but a couple of seconds. “If not, then I failed, and I’m probably dead already, either by Dr. Crane himself, or Bruce Wayne, for taking advantage of him like I am tonight. I wouldn’t blame him for it, honestly…” She looked down, regret flashing in her eyes. “He and I both have mobster blood in us, I’d be surprised if he didn’t want to kill me for letting his friend get hurt and not doing anything to stop it… It’s what Great-Uncle Finger would do.”

Jackie looked back up at the camera, sincerity peeking through a steely gaze.

> “But I am sorry to whoever might get caught in the middle. I hope there’s none, but… If I could see the future, then I would’ve swallowed that bottle of ibuprofen years ago.”

The video cut out after a moment, and Joker immediately leaned over Bruce to click through the video folder, his eyes shining in the light of the bright screen. “She’s got to have more. _Something,”_ he muttered, and promptly played a video dated nearly six weeks ago in a folder marked 'personal vlogs'.

The first thing Bruce noticed was that Jackie still had her long ponytail, giving credit to the date on the filename. The second detail was that she looked rather conflicted, even as she just sat there hugging herself in her jack-o-lantern blanket.

> “I had…an _epiphany,_ last night. I normally would’ve done this when I got home, but… I couldn’t. I was too… I’m not sure. Not _scared… Bewildered,_ I guess is the right word. Dr. Crane invited me over to his house again, yesterday. I thought, ‘yeah, last time was nice, despite the talk about death in the middle, why not?’ It was okay, at first. You know, home-made pumpkin spice lattes, catch-up about how I’m doing, gossiping about patients’ sessions I have to sit in on… And then we got onto the topic of _Gotham,_ somehow. I think I asked him why he stayed here, since he had the means to leave, and he just…”

She was half looking into the camera with general disbelief.

> “He said he _liked_ it. He thinks all the general misery is _fun to study._ I didn’t know what else to say to that, so I tried to change the subject, and asked what he thought of Batman, because…I mean, what normal person doesn’t like _him,_ right? And he thinks he’s _fascinating._ Or…really, he thinks the _effect_ Batman has on the _city_ is fascinating. He thinks the way criminals fear him is _interesting._ So… I just said, ‘yeah, that makes sense, you like studying human behavior around fear, don’t you?’”

She got quiet, but stared dead at the camera.

> “He _lit up_ at that. Like, the happiest I think I’ve ever seen him. He actually _smiled a little,”_ she pressed, leaning forward to emphasize her point before sitting there with her arms on the table. “So, I figured that had to be _good._ We talked about his work for a _really_ long time - I still remember going through bits of it at school, and I _did_ genuinely like his stuff, so he walked me through his last one, and I guess I said something right, because… He said he was testing something special for his current research, and he asked what my worst fear was.”

She paused and sat up straight, crossing her arms again.

> “I mean, I’m not stupid enough to ask why. I can _guess_ why. So I told him my old one so it’d be believable. And he just looks at me and says ‘So imagine I can manifest those roaches before your eyes. What would you do?’” She phrased in a fairly good imitation of Crane’s pitch, “I said I didn’t know; probably squish as many as possible while screaming my head off, and he…he just said, _‘Yes_ , that’d be interesting, wouldn’t it?’”

She stared down at the surface of the desk, almost in awe.

> “And I just… I just _realized,_ right _there,_ that he was making something to do that to _patients._ I never asked him about what he did in sessions, but… I’m allowed to peek at almost everyone’s notes to look at the progress of certain patients, and it just… _hit_ me. _He’s_ why some of them are _regressing.”_

She was quiet for a minute, only shifting to get comfortable again, and staring out the window by the desk.

> “And I couldn’t help but think, ‘that _IS_ interesting’. I thought that, and I _meant_ it, and I _hate_ that I thought it at _all._ And… I _know_ that secret, now. I have to carry it around with everything else.”

Jackie stared a little longer, first out the window, then at her desk, and then she swiveled the chair and moved to click the mouse with an irritated scowl.

> “Fuck it.”

That was certainly enlightening… Bruce _had_ wondered how Jackie had developed the idea to steal his research – she’d apparently known for weeks already, before she’d reached out to Bruce days ago and asked for his help. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it was _her_ who had prevented him from seeing John, solely to drum up his suspicion and get him invested in her idea of helping her steal Crane’s files.

(Though he couldn’t see her knowing everything else in-between. There was no way she knew he stole Crane’s fake drugs from the lab, or that they would walk right by John that day, or that John would break out of his cell at all.)

John was already clicking to another video, a determined frown on his long face.

“Joker, that’s _enough,”_ Bruce said, moving to stop him, but Joker was just fast enough to start a new one, dated almost four weeks ago, and it caught his attention enough that he let his wrist go.

Jackie Lant faced the webcam with her head in her hand, taking deep breaths, and on the third, she turned her gaze to the window to her side.

> “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I really, _really,_ don’t.”

The look in her eyes was _furious,_ despite her relatively flat expression _._

> “I hate it when people say it’s ‘the little things in life’ – they always mean ‘oh, life’s not so bad, just look at this fucking rainbow’, like that will make everything better for you,” she grumbled, turning to look at the camera. “It’s like, ‘hey, you ever see a guy get stabbed in the middle of the road? Just fucking _stabbed?_ And you’re in your car, you have to keep driving, because you’ll be penalized for being late to work, and if you go out there and try to do something about it, _you’ll_ be stabbed, too. And you have to just… _pretend_ like you didn’t see anything. That everything is perfectly fine. It’s just…a _little_ thing,’” Jackie finishes, a lopsided smile tugging on the corner of her mouth for a moment, and then it faded into a flat line. “I tried texting Dean about it, since he was _there_ when Michelle got killed, and he just… He said ‘that’s how life is around here, you gotta be tough.’”

Jackie stared at the table, her eyes glistening slightly, the anger never leaving them.

> “Four years… _Four_ _years,_ and that’s what seeing her die in the _fucking_ street has reduced that to. Just another part of life in Gotham.”

She blinked away the tears threatening to fall, taking the sleeve of her hoodie to wipe at her face properly for a moment.

> “I tried telling Ver’ about it, too – not directly, just, ‘hey I’m feeling super awful and I hate my life.’ And all she said was, ‘Look on the bright side! It’s the little things that make life worth living!’” she paraphrased in a falsetto sort of voice, her brows furrowing. “Fuck her. Just… _fuck_ her. She can come live in Gotham for a day, see if _she_ can look on the fucking bright side…”

Jackie grunted to herself, rubbing her face into her hands for a moment, and when she reappeared, she had a steady gaze.

> “I just have to shove all this down, I guess. Like I don’t already do that all the time.” She stared right at the screen, as if watching herself, and her face grew soft and contemplative. “I’ll just put it next to the thoughts of how I threw my dreams down the gutter, or how much I’d rather risk taking the train to East End than having to work at Arkham one more day,” she added spitefully, despite the glint of humor that crossed over her expression. “I guess I just have to…” She smiled a little wistfully at the camera, even as her eyes dulled. _“Smile, though your heart is breaking,”_ she half-sang.

Bruce heard John snort heavily, as if trying to stifle a laugh, and turned to look just as a loud cackle burst out of him.

John doubled over, clearly trying to stifle his own raucous laugh as he held his stomach like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

Bruce almost wanted to punch him, but held himself steady, clenching his fists as John turned away from him, giggling uncontrollably.

Half a year in Arkham wasn’t going to change him. He was _always_ going to find this sort of thing entertaining. Bruce never quite forgot the conversation they had during Harvey Dent’s speech about hunting down the Children of Arkham; John had grinned wide and joked about it all like it wasn’t actually happening, even though they both knew it was. That same man was right there, throwing open the window and laughing like a damn hyena.

John stuck his head out into the pouring rain, letting the water drown out some of the noise as brown hair dye and make-up started to wash away.

“What are you doing?!” Batman’s voice growled out as Bruce shot up and yanked him back out by the collar, angry at him for laughing at all, for doing something so stupid as showing his face, for further washing away the only thing really keeping him safe-

“I-I’m sorry,” John managed, still chuckling to himself as he tried to steady himself upright using Bruce’s shoulder. “It-it’s _funny,_ but I just… I just can’t – _hee hee_ – be-believe… I’m…” He tried to breathe, a grin still plastered on his face, make-up running terribly in what almost looked like tear-tracks on his cheeks as his laughter slowed. The sound of the video continuing on low volume as rain hit the brick and pavement outside was almost loud enough to prevent Bruce from properly hearing him. “I’m _sympathizing_ with her!” He finished, letting out another little burst of laughter.

 _That_ was sympathy…?

“I just – oh, _geez,_ that hurts,” John breathed, a slight giggle coming out as he clutched part of the cape draped over Bruce’s shoulder. “When she was threatening you, back at Arkham, I just thought she was like _Crane;_ a weird, more _emotional_ version of him, but… I _hated_ her for it! And it turns out we - we not only having something in _common,_ but she’s like _you,”_ he emphasized, looking up at the white lenses with a bright-eyed look. It made Bruce feel like he was stuck to the floor. “You both just shove your real feelings down so far even _I_ can’t see them! You both just put on your public faces and _pretend!”_

Bruce was tempted to wipe some of the run make-up away, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the knowing glint in the green eyes that stared up at him, or if was because he just wanted to distract the man from continuing to hit Bruce right in a sore spot.

“I still don’t _like_ her,” he said, “but I don’t _hate_ her anymore. And that’s so _ridiculous,_ because I loathe _anyone_ who even _thinks_ about hurting you, Bruce,” he finished with a laugh, caressing Bruce’s arm through the Batsuit.

He didn’t know what to say. What could he even _do,_ in a place like this? In a _situation_ like this? He felt guilt and warmth pile up on one another, and he wanted to tell him he was sorry, and he wanted to reach out and cup his face and get rid of all the color until there was nothing but _John_ left, and he knew what John said wasn’t exactly healthy but it still sent a _rush_ through him and _he just wanted to…_

It wasn’t the time or place for anything like that. He was Batman. John was Joker. They were supposed to be investigating Jackie Lant so they could get a lead on Crane.

Batman was sturdy. _Bruce_ was sturdy.

“Joker,” he started, forcing himself to maintain eye contact even as John’s pupils dilated slightly in response, “Go wash the rest of that stuff off. I’ll copy over the rest of Jackie’s vlog files.”

“My face looks that bad, huh?”

“A little.”

Joker tore himself away, letting his fingers slide over the armored bicep as he passed by. He couldn’t feel the touch at all, but the gesture was more than enough to give him a pleasant little jolt.

Bruce copied a compressed version of her vlog files to the USB stick he carried in his belt. They might be useful, or they might not. A quick scroll through of the rest of her documents showed nothing nefarious, no hidden files, no detailed plans - not so much as a crude map of the asylum. Her browsing history was pretty normal, though he did see some bookmarks to particular blogs she followed, such as _Batman Watch_ , _Gotham’s-Dark-Knight_ , and _Gotham Gazette Official._

Bruce was sure he could reason with her. Jackie Lant was stubborn, but she seemed desperate for someone to talk to, and relied only on herself for everything; she either had a backup plan memorized for if things went south, or she was making it up as she went along. She clearly internalized a lot of pain, and not having an outlet for it besides talking to herself seemed to be the final straw in what drove her to desperate measures of escape.

She would probably be thrown in a jail cell for assault and conspiracy to murder, but Bruce was fairly positive she needed some mental help. If he managed to talk her down, he could likely fix it so she wasn’t thrown with the rest of the wolves in Black Gate. Perhaps he could even transfer her out of Gotham entirely.

The files had almost finished downloading when Bruce heard a metallic clink ringing against tile followed by a muttered curse.

He rushed to the small, dimly-lit bathroom, and was greeted with John standing on the rim of the built-in tub, rubbing his head with one hand and holding what looked like part of the shower-head in the other.

“No need to worry, Bats,” Joker said without even turning around. “Just hit myself a bit on this,” he explained, holding up the outer piece to the shower attachment. “Good news though, I found the key to the safe!”

Joker hopped down, stooped, and picked up a key from the base of the tub, turning to face Bruce with a proud grin. “I _knew_ it must have been in here!”

His face was mostly clear, now. His eyelids were still fairly dark, but it was a lot of make-up to wash away, and it couldn’t have been easy for such a fast job. His eyebrows were back to being green, and there were even chunks of color showing under the temporary hair dye.

Bruce forced himself to focus on the task at hand. “How did you think to look in the _showerhead?”_

“Jackie’s a super-secretive girl, and _I_ would put a key to a safe holding what I was working my life towards in a place no one would think to look… And the toilet tank was empty.” He dangled the key in front of their faces. “You want to do the honors, Batman?”

Bruce took the invitation. He dropped the lock-box onto the desk, minding the laptop, and turned the key, pushing away the tiny concerned thought about a potential bomb.

He pushed aside the academic papers Crane had written on top of the pile, and found a stack of Arkham patient notes that Bruce knew he’d comb through later, despite it likely not holding much more information than he already knew. And then, under all that, was Crane’s hard drive.

“See if you can find some plastic bags,” Bruce suggested, leafing through the papers to make sure everything was accounted for.

“No need to look, Batsy,” Joker grinned, and yanked an orange bag from the trench coat’s ticket pocket as if he were pulling out a line of scarves. “Ta-dah!”

“That’ll do,” Bruce answered, unable to stop the minute smile from spreading on his face.

He’d all but tied the handles together and passed it to Joker for safe-keeping when the head-set in his cowl rang obnoxiously in his ear.

“Hello?” He asked in his normal voice.

“It’s just me, Batman,” Tiffany answered, sounding somewhat drained; John mouthed ‘who is it’ as he stepped a little closer. “I wanted to apologize for what I said earlier. I’m just having trouble wrapping my head around…everything.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Yeah, well… I also wanted to tell you I got a signal from one of Maroni’s thug’s phones. I’ll send you the coordinates. Is _he_ with you?”

“…yes.”

“Figures… I’ll…discuss _that_ with you another time. Just…be careful out there.”

“Always am.”

“No you’re not,” Tiffany countered with a light-hearted scoff before hanging up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Blargggh,_ my brain failed me at a critical time, and then today my stomach acted up for about 2 hours, which impeded me further!! Something must have _really_ wanted me to just wrap up this chapter here… That, or they wanted you guys to wait this long. _I_ certainly didn’t!! (T^T)
> 
> As always, thank you SO SO much to everyone that comments, reblogs, likes, kudos, bookmarks, or subscribes!!! I said it before and I'll say it again - I love you guys!!! You guys are awesome!!!! (ෆˊ͈ ु꒳ ूˋ͈ෆ) I'm gearing up for some good times comin' soon... REAL good times. Stay tuned next weekend...


	13. La Petite Mort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All things come to those who wait. (Edit 9/21: Finally fixed! Hope you like the new bits~!)
> 
> (Edit 11/25: Check out this [super sweet fanart from Freddie-Luthor](https://freddie-luthor.tumblr.com/post/180178636928/happy-birthday-fordarkisthesuede-3)!!! Thank you so so much, Freddie!!!!!! ;o;)
> 
> **Important Spoiler tags:** death (mention), suicide (mention), swearing, shameless smut (that's tagged appropriately in the story tags now if you really need to know specifics)

“So…is this considered a dead end?”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at the tasteless joke, but kept his focus on the corpse in front of them, slumped in the corner of the alley by the trash cans, rain washing away traces of evidence that might have been incredibly useful.

Lee Xelleth, former Maroni gangbanger, was a large man with more brains than his hardened face implied, and Bruce remembered he had more near misses with Lee’s bullets than any other of Maroni’s higher-ups before the mob boss got thrown in prison. Lee had managed to slip through the cracks of the justice system on technicalities that shouldn’t have existed.

Bruce had the thought that it seemed justice had caught up with him, and hated it the second it started to form.

A bullet to the brain was not true justice. Especially when it looked to be self-inflicted.

Joker gave the umbrella in his hand a spin behind his head, flicking more water into the air, some of which hit Bruce. He didn’t mind; they were both soaking wet anyway. “It’s not just _me_ thinking that it’s super fishy he decides to knock himself off in a back alley, right? ‘Cause it smells like tuna surprise.”

“No, they dumped him here. Ivan and Kip were the two mobsters who went along for the attack on the diner. Lee might have decided against cooperating.”

“I bet he’s got an injection hole somewhere,” Joker muttered bitterly as Bruce knelt to better examine Lee’s lifeless body. “It’s not like our mad doctor to hold the knife to your neck; he wants you to do it yourself…”

“Agreed,” he grumbled, checking the bullet wound. Burn marks and black powder residue surrounded it – Lee had definitely held the gun against his temple, and it was on the right side, in correlation with his dominant hand. The exit wound was slightly bigger than the entrance. Bruce doubted extracting the bullet would do much good here; it was likely a 9mm, probably from a Glok, which used to be the mobster’s handgun of choice.

Joker gave a short chuckle. “Why are you checking that? He _shot_ himself – no surprise there.”

“You should always make sure,” Bruce advised, moving the dead man’s collar aside to check his neck for a puncture wound. Nothing. He rolled up the man’s sleeves, deciding to check there next. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen a murder disguised as suicide.”

Joker kneeled down next to him, holding the large umbrella over both of them as if Bruce needed the coverage for his water-proof armor. “…is it one of those _murder-suicides,_ then?”

“That’s only if he killed other people first,” Bruce explained, feeling a bit like a teacher. “We were right - he has an injection site inside his arm. You can see the bruising.”

“So, Crane injects him, watches him shoot himself, and dumps the body in a random alley...”

“It might not be random.” Bruce stood, Joker standing with him to keep the umbrella over both of their heads. (It was so unnecessary – John was far less waterproof than he was, he shouldn’t worry over the Batsuit. Or him, for that matter… Though Bruce supposed it was part of his growth; he didn’t think of Batman as invincible as he used to.) “Lee has been here for several hours, judging by the rate of decomposition in this weather.” Bruce brought up the local map on his gauntlet, and Joker had an impressed glow to his face that the vigilante had a feeling wasn’t due to the purple backlight of his gear. “He could have been dumped on the way to the Main Street Diner, or after. This alley isn’t too far removed from the diner – it could’ve been a mid-point between his target and his hideout.”

Joker’s eyes had the purple streaks reflected in them as he seemed to examine Batman’s gauntlet, and he looked very much like a devil with a secret. It was a knowing expression with wicked hints of excitement, and it always made Bruce pause and go over the fine details in his face, like he could somehow find out what the thinner man knew just by observing him. Joker’s gaze flicked up to the cowl’s eyepieces, and Bruce knew before those pale, unpainted lips parted that he was going to be proven wrong somewhere.

“You’re not thinking like _him,_ though, are you,” Joker started, flashing a sly grin, _“You’re_ thinking like _you._ Our doctor isn’t _like_ you, Batman. He’s studied _years’_ worth of serial killer’s methods at the breakfast table like he was reading the funny pages. He’s watched people kill _over_ and _over_ and get away with it until the last few yards of film roll on screen…and he’s undoubtedly got _two_ skeletons stashed behind _someone’s_ closet,” he finished with a low, serious grumble before returning to his usual dark humor. “Do you think he’s going to be performing in _amateur hour?”_

“…Joker, do you think he took a detour specifically to dump Lee’s body?”

“Mm- _hmm,”_ Joker hummed, seeming pleased that Bruce had caught on. _Too_ pleased; if Bruce wasn’t in the Batsuit, he would’ve surely felt his face flush at the tone. “I think he went as far out of his way as he could. Rush hour gets pretty hectic, even _without_ random terrorist attacks.”

He had a point. He started back on the illuminated map, moving it around to see if there was anything remotely possible nearby. The amount of potential locations was ridiculous. “So if it’s not in the radius…”

Joker had gone back to staring – or, rather, _glaring,_ like it was a particularly gross piece of garbage rather than a human corpse – at the body slumped against the brick wall. “You know… It might not have even been _Crane_ who dumped him. He probably would’ve stolen the guy’s phone, rather than left it on him.”

“That’s true. Crane could have had someone drop Lee here while he went elsewhere – likely staked out at the diner. There’s no way of knowing for sure, with all of this rain.”

Joker clicked his tongue against his teeth, gripping the handle of the umbrella with more force than necessary. “What a waste of time.”

“Not entirely,” Bruce countered, sending a quick text to Tiffany about Lee Xelleth’s body. “We know they’re down an evasive, sharp-shooting member, so the group has gotten weaker.” Bruce knelt and pulled Lee’s cellphone out of the man’s trouser pocket, careful not to get the ports wet - it was dead, like its owner. “Tiffany said his phone was receiving a call. We can charge it and see who it was. If Crane’s hard-drive doesn’t have anything, we can see if whoever was calling him knew what he was up to.”

Joker laughed, his good mood returning. “Ooh, if it’s spam, can we go interrogate them for _fun?_ I can tell them to stop trying to offer to clean the house I don’t have! I’ve gotten _three_ of those already, and I haven’t had this thing for a full _day…”_

“No. Besides, that’s Caesar’s phone, not yours. Let him deal with them.” Bruce pocketed the dead phone and turned to look back out at the Batmobile; rain drops rolled off the windshield like sweat down a person’s back. “Let’s get back to the cave. I’ll synthesize your medication before we decrypt the drive.”

“Okie dokie, Batsy.” Joker _(John_ , now that they were headed home) folded the umbrella and started making his way towards the passenger side, like he suddenly didn’t mind if he got a little wetter.

“You shouldn’t close that so early,” Bruce scolded lightly as he caught up to drape one half of his cape over John’s head, mindful of the extra water that spattered on the pavement.

He was extra mindful of the way John looked at him, surprise mixing with the sort of warmth that Bruce could swear the man only seemed to get when he was looking up at him.

John’s affectionate air didn’t diminish when Bruce shut the passenger door after him, nor when the billionaire-vigilante got back behind the wheel to drive them home.

*~*~*~*~*

Bruce’s library was a decent size for a manor. It housed books far older than he was, and others that had been in his family for generations, including ones from his mother’s side. In truth, he tried to keep the place categorized alphabetically by genre, as it had always been, but he was so often tempted to move some of his father’s books to some dark corner. Still, it was a far better place to work than the billiard room, where the picture above the fireplace loomed over him with his parent’s judging eyes, and it was a lot warmer and less distracting than the Batcave.

Naturally, John had been excited to be in there. (He’d confessed to sneaking in and peeking at it before, but apparently he thought it would be rude to actually go in and look around without Bruce’s knowledge. Bruce found that kind of logic-leap puzzling, since John had no problem taking his things or peeking under sheets.)

_Had_ being the key word with John – once the antipsychotic the Batcomputer had generated for him kicked in, he had gotten drowsy, but refused to leave Bruce to ‘do all the heavy lifting’ and insisted on sitting next to him on the leather couch and doing _something._

Bruce was going through all of Crane’s notes from what must have been the _Arkham_ folder in his home office – he refused to let John peek at them, since a lot of it seemed to do with his patients, and instead asked John to go through the rest of Jackie’s vlogs. He figured the audio would help keep him focused. They couldn’t do much else, since the Batcomputer was currently running through its decryption program of Dr. Crane’s hard drive; the technology might have been old, but it was very well protected, and Bruce had a feeling the Batcomputer was going to take a while.

Crane’s notes were…disturbing, to say the least. Bruce hadn’t expected any less, given what he already knew, but the doctor liked to mix the history of the building or himself in parts where he described patient’s reactions to the toxin. He didn’t seem to be under the delusion that he and the building were connected, but he got the impression that Crane liked it a lot more than he should.

> _I had to retrieve more of my formula before Heather’s session. I truly hate how they renovated the basement – having such a bright lab to work in doesn’t fit in with the rest of the asylum. It’s like wandering onto a set of one of those ridiculously inaccurate crime scene investigation shows. The architecture of Arkham dates back almost a hundred years! Why wash over a beautiful masterpiece of Victorian gothic architecture? It’s not as if the residents come downstairs any more to be shocked into a cure._
> 
> _But oh, how I wish they’d kept that chair… It would have been a fine collector’s piece. And of course our dear Heather would finally wriggle in her restraints. That awful tendency to go stiff under my formula is beginning to bother me…_

Bruce felt disgusted. According to the other notes of their ‘sessions’, Heather Fortescue’s worst fear was reliving the violent assault that drove her insane. She’d killed four men before she was arrested, raving about being a spirit of rightful vengeance. He didn’t blame her for going stiff at recalling the memory.

He slowly flipped through the hole-punched ledger pages. He’d read three other patient’s ‘session’ histories already, and none of them shed any new light onto Crane, outside of a fascination with the dark history of Gotham and the asylum. The rest of Heather’s didn’t seem to show anything else, only an excited doctor when he finally got her to show a violent response to the drug.

He reached John’s pages. He wasn’t sure he should even look at them.

Bruce looked over at his friend, who was staring somewhat vacantly at the tablet’s screen. He seemed to be re-watching the last video Jackie Lant had taken.

“John?”

He snapped to attention, yanking out one of the earbuds and looking like he was happy just to have his name called. “Yeah, buddy?”

Bruce wasn’t sure he could ask. Not to a man with such an innocent expression. But he _had_ to. He’d feel guilty if he didn’t.

“Do you mind if I go through Crane’s notes on you?”

John sat back with a frown, un-crossing his legs, and hummed a little, looking up at the ceiling. One of his boot’s heels tapped the floor in a slow beat as his fingers drummed against the tablet. Bruce forced his eyes to stay at John’s face; he’d rolled the button-down shirt’s sleeves up to his elbows. (He wasn’t sure why _that_ was growing to be one of his weaknesses… Then again, maybe he was just reminded of yesterday’s impromptu sleep-over, and the feeling of John’s skin against his the next morning.) “I _suppose,”_ John said slowly, not looking at him. “Though it is a _complete_ invasion of privacy… I _do_ want us to be open with each other,” he concluded with a light purr to his voice, turning his head towards Bruce with a dark gleam in his acidic greens, “And it’s not as if he’s a _real_ doctor, anyway.”

Bruce fought the urge to move… _somewhere._ He wasn’t sure if he wanted to jump ship or take a seat on deck when John talked like that. “I can just skim it, if you want,” he suggested.

“Up to you,” John said quietly with a little shrug, the little smile not leaving his face. “Though you’ll have to tell me if you’ve found anything interesting.”

Bruce wasn’t sure if John was talking about anything relating to _Crane_ or to _him,_ but decided not to ask. He went ahead with reading some of the doctor’s scrawl, deciding that wouldn’t be very fair to both John-the-patient and John-his-best-friend to read the whole thing. It wasn’t as if the doctor was going to find out something that Bruce didn’t already know or guess at. He skimmed over it.

> _I asked John if he’d ever had shock therapy – he said ‘in a way’. He won’t elaborate on that. The chair was removed several years ago, but when I asked about it, John just told me the story of its first use, complete with annoying hand gestures. He went into such detail that it appears he is just as well-versed in Arkham’s history as I am. He mentioned the rumor of Thomas Wayne strapping victims to it for fun, and asked me if that wasn’t the most outlandish thing I’d ever heard._
> 
> _He seems to hold the delusion that he knows what Thomas Wayne would’ve ‘really done’. But that’s impossible – Thomas Wayne died over twenty years ago. John Doe’s estimated age is early to mid-thirties. He certainly could not have known the man as a child; he doesn’t claim to, either. I asked if he ‘knew’ because he was close to Thomas’ son, Bruce Wayne. He took offense to that and told me they were completely different and that ‘I would know that if I paid attention’._
> 
> _It was actually satisfying to dose him up after that. He always goes quiet and stares off into space…_
> 
> _He STILL has almost no reaction to the masks. I don’t understand. He doesn’t normally have visual hallucinations; I know he doesn’t see these things every day. The mushrooms should warp and twist everything, but all he does is wince and shrink back in his seat when I force him to look at me…_

Bruce skipped over the next couple of paragraphs. He didn’t want to know about John’s reactions to the drug. He saw it first-hand, and he didn’t want to visualize the man sitting next to him attempted to be tortured.

> _I asked him what he normally does when he’s anxious. He said it varies, but he often goes for Dr. Leland’s approach of running through a list. He apparently knows quite a bit of Gotham’s criminal history, and went through a list of the mafia families that have been taken down over the years, starting in the thirties. He even mentioned ones I didn’t know of. How did he learn all of this…?_

Bruce felt something warm hit his shoulder – John’s head leaned against it, still looking down at the tablet, only now it was split-screened between a paused video player and a browser for the Batcomputer’s criminal database.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, “I need something sturdy. You don’t mind, do you?” He tilted his head up to look at Bruce, the sincere worry that he’d gone too far written on his face.

“Not at all,” Bruce answered, despite his stomach squirming.

He _didn’t_ mind, surprisingly enough. He normally disliked being close to someone platonically for more than what was considered natural, with few exceptions to that unspoken rule. Today, feeling something heavy and warm and solid leaning into him was so comforting he wanted to pull it in and lean into it. The fact that it was John made the want ten times stronger.

Perhaps it was because of all the death they encountered, but he didn’t feel like he usually did on a case. He normally pushed himself into his work and went at it like a machine because he was the only one who could do what he did.

Maybe it was because he felt like he could rely on someone to share the load, and they were leaning on him, trying to give help as much as they were receiving it.

Or _maybe_ it was because he’d had a similar urge last night. He tried to push away the thought of John lying next to him again, bruised and beautiful, radiating nothing but pure affection, and Bruce found it difficult not to see the same man there on the couch.

“You feeling okay?”

“Better than that,” John replied with a light chuckle, scrolling through a list of names.

Bruce didn’t bother asking why he needed to lean against him otherwise. “What are you looking up?”

“Jackie Lant’s great-uncle,” John replied, swiping the screen to reveal a very old mugshot. “She said she had mobster blood, but her immediate family is almost squeaky clean – her dear old _uncle’s_ a retired mafia doc’. Mr. Oscar ‘Finger’ Arron Lant apparently specialized in re-attaching fingers, hence his little nickname.”

Bruce speed-read through the small print. There was no last known address, despite the man getting out of prison a decade and a half ago.

“Pretty sure he changed his name, but he’s got no death recorded, so he’s probably living around here – I bet anything Jackie’s hiding out at his place.”

John sat up to face him properly, clutching the tablet with both hands and seeming pleased with himself. Bruce could almost see the words _‘praise me’_ written on his face. He took a slow breath, smelling the cologne John had applied earlier that morning. (He must have reapplied it when he went to dry his hair. Did he _know_ just how alluring that scent was when it blended with the rain sticking to his skin?) He wanted to go ahead and say something, just be genuine about it, but…

Good God, Bruce felt like he was being pulled in and swallowed by some unknown force. He remembered feeling something similar nearly two years ago, when Selina Kyle had cuddled up to him on her couch after she'd patched him up. He’d been tempted for the second time that night to just lean in and kiss her, to let things progress if they could – he’d resisted the urge completely, then, since he knew Harvey liked her, and he wasn’t about to ruin a friendship over something like a flight of fancy for a woman he’d known for such a short time.

But that same urge seized him now, as strong and as fast as a punch, and there was no small nagging thought at the back of his mind about how wrong it would be. Even if there was, Bruce wouldn’t have paid it any attention – his heart was pounding in his ribs and he didn’t see or hear anything else but John.

There was no hesitation when he leaned in. He vaguely realized he wasn’t holding onto Crane’s notes anymore when he felt his hand slide over the heated cotton of John’s borrowed shirt at the same time their lips met, the sensation igniting a spark Bruce hadn’t felt in years.

It only lasted a moment. To Bruce’s surprise, John pushed slightly at his chest and retreated, though not but a few inches away. John couldn’t seem to blush, and the low amber lights of the library were making it difficult to tell if his eyes were glinting naturally or not.

“Bruce… Why did you kiss me?” John asked uncertainly.

It was a funny thing about repressed feelings – they always seemed to push back up eventually. Bruce just hadn’t expected to feel so much of it at once:  every pull, every burst of warmth, every time his mood lifted at the _sight_ of the man in front of him – it all accumulated into every single moment Bruce caught himself feeling or thinking something he certainly shouldn’t.

He still felt guilt biting at his heart. He didn’t deserve to feel this way, not even a little, towards the strange, intelligent, ridiculously charming man he’d used and ultimately drove over the edge.

But lying to John now would be disastrous. They’d _promised_ to be honest with each other, and Bruce didn’t have the excuse of the Batsuit to hold himself back.

“I think I’m in love.”

John’s eyes widened as his jaw slacked until his lips parted naturally. He looked like Bruce had said he’d be making his vigilante identity public. “W-with _me?”_

Bruce could’ve said anything. He couldn’t made a sarcastic remark about it being someone else, or a smart jab at there being no one else around, or just letting the silence speak for him. “Yes,” he admitted, feeling like his throat had gone completely dry.

There was always the possibility of rejection, even with someone as seemingly devoted and obsessive as John – so to see his wide smile break out and his laugh start to echo around them was confusing, to say the least. John leaned forward until his head rested on Bruce’s shoulder again, almost shaking with laughter.

The billionaire would’ve questioned this if he had been feeling anything other than crushed under the heel of an iron boot, so he just held John there cautiously, not wanting to keep away but not wanting to pressure him.

Shaky laughs turned into what sounded like light sobs, and John wrapped his arms around Bruce like he was a life preserver. “You…you really mean it,” John sobbed into the fabric of Bruce’s t-shirt.

It wasn’t a question, but Bruce answered anyway, rubbing circles in the man’s shoulder-blade as gently as possible. “I do.”

John gave a loud sniff and clung to Bruce a little harder. “I _knew_ it,” he managed to say, chuckling into Bruce’s neck. It sent a pleasant tingle up his skin, even as Bruce grew more and more anxious at the uncertainty.

“I know I don’t deserve it,” Bruce tried to explain, “after everything I’ve done to you…”

“Don’t _deserve_ it?” John questioned with a watery laugh as he pulled away to look at Bruce properly. His eyes were shining with unbridled joy. “Bruce Wayne, hero of Gotham – _my_ hero,” he emphasized - “doesn’t deserve to have _feelings?”_ He laughed to himself, wiping his damp face with one hand. _“I’m_ the one who doesn’t deserve _you,_ Bruce. I tried to _kill_ you once, for Pete’s sake...” John looped his arms around Bruce’s neck and gave a happy chortle, a knowing, hungry look taking over his features. “I _knew_ you had to love me,” he purred, “I didn’t want to hope too much before, but I knew the _moment_ I saw my stuff in your little rogue gallery’s pride of place.”

Bruce felt his face burn. “That’s…not…”

“Don’t you deny it _now,_ Brucie,” John chided, pushing himself close enough that their noses were almost touching. “You can see my case _perfectly_ if you turn even _slightly_ in your chair, and it’s got _three_ pieces in it compared to everyone else’s two, all _lined up_ like your own gear…” His acidic eyes stared holes into Bruce’s blue. There was no escape from their sharpness. “You came to see me in Arkham the first chance you got, and you kept coming back, too.” His voice lowered, and Bruce felt one of his hands comb into his hair like he was caressing fine silk. “I make _one_ little phone call, and you come _running._ Not to mention,” he purred, running his other hand over the top of Bruce’s spine, “you keep _staring_ at me…”

Bruce was a little too stimulated by everything (that _voice,_ that _stare,_ _oh God his_ _hands felt so good)_ to really come up with a proper response, so his solution was to pull John forward and kiss him so hard it would take his breath away.

This time, John kissed back with a welcoming moan. He seemed to just be playing by instinct rather than experience, leaning in with more teeth than lips, but Bruce felt a thrill shoot through him at the sensation, and he didn’t care if John had ever kissed anyone before or not. Everything else in the world was forgotten as they grabbed onto each other, hands moving through hair and over backs and bony hips as they started to swallow each other’s air.

Bruce heard the tablet’s soft case bounce against the Persian rug as John shifted, angling more towards him as their kiss became open-mouthed. Bruce grabbed at the back of John’s head as he pushed his tongue against his, trying to be gentle despite the growing need to feel every single inch of the man currently throwing a leg over his lap like he was trying to climb on top of it. John was giving a nice, low rumble from the back of his throat that sent Bruce’s blood rushing south.

It certainly didn’t help that the set of fingers not tangling themselves in Bruce’s hair were blazing a wandering trail from his back to his side and then trying to be sneaky about dipping under his t-shirt. Nor that his tongue wouldn’t stop sliding around their mouths, trying to imitate Bruce’s moves.

John gave a little whine when the hand on his lower back slid over the curve of his rear. Bruce pulled his mouth away for breath, opening his eyes just to get an idea of what John looked like in the heat of things, and seeing John looking back with a gaze so hot it could melt stone made Bruce shiver.

Bruce could not remember the last time he’d gotten so hard in such a short span of time, nor when someone else had looked at him like that.

John pulled away ever so slightly with the most delightfully wicked grin Bruce had ever seen. “You have no idea how many times I imagined this,” he purred, sliding his hand to the top of Bruce’s thigh. “Or at least something _like_ it,” he corrected himself with a slight shrug, his eyes glowing from the amber lamps.

He knew he should have been disturbed by the thought, but the idea that John had masturbated to fantasies about him for at least as long as they’d known each other was so hot Bruce didn’t care about the unhealthily obsessive particulars. He gave John’s ass a firm squeeze over his tailored slacks, causing a pleased grunt to spill from the other man’s lips. “I think I can fulfill some of those fantasies tonight,” he replied with a smirk.

John giggled. “Maybe you _can_ , Brucie, but what about _yours?”_ His palm rubbed over the fly of Bruce’s jeans, making the erection beneath practically jump to attention. “I’m sure you have all _kinds_ of nasty thoughts hiding behind that handsome face.”

He did, as a matter of fact. There was the idea that he could just push John down and fuck him right then and there, awkward angles be damned. There was another where Bruce could pull John into his lap and take his time exploring him until he got John to ride him like there was no tomorrow. But while Bruce was running out of patience, what he really wanted was for them to press so flush against one another that they wouldn’t have room for air.

“I don’t think this couch is big enough for what I want to do to you,” Bruce growled out, delighting in the way it made John light up anew.

John shifted out of his strangely draped position, and there was a light clink of glass – his heel hit the tablet. He cast a look down, and his face fell dramatically. “Oh, but we probably don’t have time, do we?”

Bruce stood, mindful of the mess of paper and electronics, and held his hand out like he was asking for a dance. “I’ve got an alert system set up for my phone. We’ve got time, if you want it.”

John ran his gaze up Bruce’s outstretched hand and over his arm until they’re eyes locked, and Bruce knew before John eagerly snatched onto his hand that there would be nothing else standing between them. “You _know_ I do.”

Bruce didn’t mind when John decided to start walking a lot faster ahead of him, eagerly un-bottoning his shirt as he went.

“Last one in bed is a rotten agent!” John taunted, starting to dash up the steps like it was a game of tag.

Bruce actually allowed a weak laugh to escape, even as he watched John try to strip and run at the same time. He decided to slow his pace, just to make John wait a little longer, and thought about whether or not he wanted to leave his own clothes laying in the hall where he could drop them. It wasn’t as if anyone else was going to see.

Though he did suppose the guards outside his house could break down the door if they really wanted, and both Tiffany and Iman had their own keys if they wanted to just walk in. Alfred would have probably scolded Bruce for leaving clothes laying around like a rebellious teen.

At the top of the steps, Bruce was alone in the hall, and he tore off his shirt and socks, making a mental note to call Alfred tomorrow.

_“Bruuuce,”_ John called from the open bedroom door, “I’m _waiiitiiing…”_

It seemed the bedside lamp was on. He undid his belt, too, feeling a rush at hearing the sensuous tone, and thoughts of anyone else in the world evaporated as he walked in the doorway and took in the sight of John leaning back on the edge of the bed in the nude, his pale, hard cock sticking up in the air between his slightly spread legs.

John didn’t get long to take in the sight of his completely bare torso, because Bruce rushed at him and pushed his shoulders down onto the mattress without any amount of hesitation, capturing his lips and swallowing any words the clownish man might have said.

John moaned loud, already trying to push Bruce’s pants down, and Bruce quickly trailed wet kisses to the hollow of the man’s throat. He gently sucked the skin there in-between his teeth, intent on leaving a mark, and heard John giggle as he wrapped a bare leg around Bruce’s hip.

“Oh, _Bruce_ … _”_

He really wasn’t sure how John could manage to laugh in almost every kind of situation, but whether he’d found it genuinely funny or not didn’t matter – Bruce was incredibly hard, and he wanted him, and wanted to press close enough to him that it would be _impossible_ to break them apart.

Bruce nipped at John’s throat, causing another little chortle, and pulled away just long enough to undo his jeans and let them and his boxer-briefs slide to the floor.

John had taken the short opportunity to slide further into the bed, positioning himself so his head would hit the pillow eventually, his eyes radiating lust as they roamed over every bit of flesh he could see. Bruce was too hard and too impatient to let him look for long.

John beckoned him forward with open arms, and Bruce fell into them, returning the glowing worship John was giving him with a slow, passionate kiss, feeling heat blaze over his skin anywhere it came into contact with John’s. Their erections rubbed together as Bruce sank down into the bed, drawing a shamefully needy whine from the back of his own throat, causing John to grip his shoulders and thrust his hips skyward.

It was like a fire started in them, blazing on a trail of gasoline started by a single thrown match. Bruce ground against John’s hips, their shafts sliding against one another as the heads of their dicks pressed hotly against one another’s stomachs, both groaning into each other’s mouths as their tongues tangled together.

Bruce rolled them onto their sides, pulling John towards him by his hips. Their hands wandered and groped everywhere they could reach each other, sliding over hot skin and feeling muscle beneath like they were desperate to touch it all at once, barely breaking for air until they had to. Bruce almost hissed when John ran his thin fingers over the base of Bruce’s dick.

_“John,”_ he muttered, feeling like he was going to come any moment. “Not _yet…”_

John grinned, burning a trail up to the head of Bruce’s aching cock. “I’m so _close,_ Bruce,” he teased huskily, his tongue darting out to purposelessly moisten his lips. “Aren’t _you?”_

He groaned when John’s hand wrapped firmly around him. Oh, _God,_ yes, he was going to come. It wouldn’t take much more. He gripped John’s ass hard and pushed his tongue down his throat, the flavor of John’s mouth coating his taste buds, and John stiffened and gripped Bruce’s back and shaft a little harder as he gasped.

Bruce could barely register feeling John’s semen hitting his abdomen as he tumbled over the edge into his own orgasm, dark and light blending together as he held onto John like his life was at stake.

When he opened his eyes again, pulling his mouth away with a quiet gasp, he saw John’s staring back at him, hooded and glimmering.

“Will there be a round two?” He rasped, slowly running the hand that had been between their legs up and over Bruce’s side.

“If you want,” Bruce replied, feeling the corners of his mouth tug upward into a lazy smile. He was far from spent, but it didn’t mean he could magically get it back up right away. “But you’ll have to give me about twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be patient. I’ve been waiting long enough for this moment; I can wait a _little_ more to finally have your dick in my ass.”

Bruce actually laughed, turning somewhat into the pillow he was laying on like he was trying not to look at John while it happened.

“I… Oh my _God,”_ John muttered, looking star-struck, “I actually made you _laugh!”_

“Why is that a surprise?” Bruce managed, still smiling as he smoothed his hand up John’s spine. “You literally call yourself the _Joker_ – you should be able to do that at least once.”

“I know, but-!” John laughed to himself, sending little vibrations through Bruce where they still touched. “I never thought it would be _now!_ I’m going to have to mark this day on the calendar…”

“You don’t _have_ a calendar.”

“Not right _now,_ no,” he admitted, still beaming like it was the best day of his life. “But I’ll get one someday! Oh _man,_ I never thought I’d get your love-confession on the same day as this _momentous occasion…_ Actually, wait – we got home after eleven, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“So what time is it?”

Bruce rolled onto his back, the extra heat John’s body provided quickly ebbing away as the other man withdrew both of his arms. “Just after midnight,” he said, reading the arms of the tiny analog clock on the far nightstand.

John swept a finger down Bruce’s sternum, humming in response. “I’m still counting all this as Tuesday.” He trailed a line over the scar on Bruce’s collarbone, his pupils pointed fixedly on it. “You’ve got an awful lot of these, don’t you…”

“It comes with the work,” Bruce said, letting him trace his way down his chest.

“How many people have seen them?”

“Not many. I usually cover them up when I have a date.”

John smirked. “Not _me,_ though… I can see _everything.”_ His fingers wandered lower, and Bruce realized he was still partially covered in jizz.

“Um, John, we should clean up.”

The other man just grinned cheekily, moving in to kiss one of the scars on Bruce’s shoulder. “Not necessary, Bruce,” he muttered, tracing another scar further down with his fingertips, “I’ll work my way down there soon enough.”

_Oh._

Bruce debated stopping him, knowing just how many scars there were, and the implication that John was going to lick up the mix of cum they’d left behind was as arousing as it was generally unsanitary. John’s teeth grazed his left nipple, and he couldn’t help but feel like it was a very foolish thing to stop. Not when pleasure was rewarming his skin and sinking through soft tissue, the sight of John happily exploring his torso without any inhibitions practically massaging Bruce’s heart. It wasn’t as if Bruce wasn’t clean of any sexually-transmitted diseases, anyway.

“John…?”

John kissed an old bullet wound, gently prodding it with his tongue. “Hmm?”

“Have you ever had sex before?”

John’s finger scratched lightly over one of the scars on Bruce’s right thigh. “Nope!” He kissed another scar, a tiny nick Bruce had gotten from a knife years ago. “Been saving myself for _you,_ buddy,” he said with a knowing smile up at Bruce before continuing his way downwards.

The billionaire-playboy caressed the top of John’s seaweed-green hair, thinking carefully. Would it really be alright to just jump into having penetrative sex with him? They both wanted to, obviously, but Bruce’s past experiences with men, though few, taught him that anal was usually something you eased into. In any case, it should be taken slow. The lube in the drawer was top-quality, at least, so that wouldn’t be a problem…

“What’s this one from?” John asked, kissing the large scar in Bruce’s side. “It’s pretty big…”

“That’s from the explosion,” Bruce said hesitantly, already reliving the pain on John’s face during the confrontation with Waller, “on the GCPD roof.”

John drew back slightly, his brows furrowing as he ran his eyes over it. “When…you fell through the ceiling?” He asked, meeting Bruce’s eyes with a concern that hadn’t been there before.

“I landed on a broken pipe.”

John looked back down at the scar with renewed determination and a fresh burst of anger. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay, the suit kept me safe.”

“It’s _not_ okay!” John growled, glaring up defiantly, “I _caused_ this! And I never… I never apologized for it,” he finished with a sigh. “You should have told me sooner.”

“It healed fairly well before I saw you in Arkham; it’s _fine.”_

John said nothing, but he kissed the scar with a lot more fervor than any of the others, sending a shock straight up into Bruce’s chest. He traced the outline of it with his tongue, making the muscle underneath twinge, and finished by wrapping his lips around the whole section and humming, the little vibrations shoving the old painful memories of their fight right out of Bruce’s mind.

_“Now_ it’s fine,” he said with a satisfied little noise, kissing a small scar beside Bruce’s navel and shifting himself over a little further into Bruce’s space. He looked like he’d pushed the argument far under the bridge.

Bruce let out a hiss as he felt John’s tongue run lasciviously over his stomach, gathering up the sticky bodily fluids clinging to his skin. John hummed like it was a delicious sweet rather than bitter sperm. He sucked at the spots he’d licked like he was trying to get every drop, and Bruce felt like his head was going to spin from the heat starting to pool in his groin when he heard John swallow.

“Mmm, we taste _wonderful_ together, Bruce.” John kissed an unscarred spot, seemingly just because, and propped himself up on one elbow so he could look up at him properly. “Though, maybe it’s because of the _plate_ it’s on,” he teased, a dash of humor lighting up his amorous expression. “You are _some_ dish, you know that? If I wasn’t just tasting them I’d swear your abs were photoshopped on.”

Bruce scoffed, cupping John’s bony cheek. “Yeah, right – you were probably drooling over seeing them yesterday in my office.”

_“Pfft_ , take a joke, Bruce,” John chastised, still grinning up at him. “Though I’d say I did more than just _drool…”_

Bruce playfully wrinkled his nose. “John, _really?”_

He giggled, running his free hand over the large scar in Bruce’s side, making the rougher skin tingle. The worshipful adoration in his eyes was as plain as the hair on his head. “I can’t help it if I have the world’s biggest boner for you. I love you more than anything in the _world,_ Bruce.”

Knowing it deep down was one thing, but hearing it said out loud was something else entirely. It sent a warmth and a thrill through Bruce that made him feel like he was suddenly very light. Bruce sat up slowly, not thinking at all, but just letting himself feel everything as John sat up with him like they were coordinating, drawing themselves together like magnets, sitting on top of the expensive luxurious bed set that was almost as old as Bruce.

But John didn’t care about his family’s past in the same way Bruce did. He only cared about _Bruce._ He only ever _saw_ Bruce. He picked apart Bruce’s masks like they were layers of his bed and still fell in love with what was underneath.

Bruce tilted his chin up as he leaned into him, and John melted into his kiss. This time, Bruce trailed his way further down, past the mark he’d made on John’s neck, past his collarbone (which he nipped at, much to John’s delight), over the thin muscles of his chest where John’s heart beat beneath. John was breathing faster, and Bruce could feel his pulse pumping beneath certain points in his skin, jumping when Bruce tasted one spot a little firmer than the rest.

He moved further down, tasting salty skin that smelled of sweat and that unusual lime-like scent that must have just been John, and even though the semen spilled on John’s stomach was fairly dry and definitely bitter, he licked it up, pleased to hear a deep moan of his name in response. It sent heat trickling into Bruce’s genitals.

Bruce kissed the mess of green wiry hairs that sat above John’s hardening penis. He couldn’t think of the last person who he’d given a blowjob to, considering he was usually on the receiving end of those far more often, but Bruce was more than willing to give John the best he could. From what he saw of John’s medical records, he was clean, too.

Thankfully, John was incredibly easy to please. Bruce had just licked down John’s shaft, and he already was getting his head pet. He took the pinkish-colored head into his mouth, making sure he didn’t scrape his teeth against the sensitive skin, and John gave a dreamy sigh. Bruce knew he couldn’t deep-throat, so he just did his best to suck on the head, swirling his tongue around the hardening member, feeling John’s pulse race against his lips as a drop of pre-cum touched his tongue.

“Bruce,” John pleaded, tugging gently on his hair. Bruce pulled away, feeling a bit of his spit cling and fall down to the stiff erection under his chin. “I want you inside me.”

Bruce pulled away, feeling another rush of blood race downward, and let John reposition himself comfortably while he got the tube of lube and a condom from the drawer.

“Are you sure you want to?” Bruce asked, watching John for any sign of hesitation. “It might be painful if you haven’t been penetrated before.”

John flashed him a coy little grin. “Who says I haven’t?” He teased, wriggling his hips down into the plush comforter. “I had a whole year outside, Bruce. I wanted to be ready in case you ever wanted to sling some of that juicy dick my way.”

Bruce felt his libido surge. “You’ve used toys?”

“I can take quite a bit,” he hinted with a little wiggle of his eyebrows.

The condom couldn’t go on fast enough after that. Bruce squirted a very healthy amount of lube on one hand, slicking up his shaft as John watched with a hungry stare. Should he finger him first? It seemed like the right thing to do, just to get him loosened, but just when he was going to, John snatched his wrist.

“Bruce,” he rumbled, looking like he was going to devour Bruce alive, “I _told_ you I can take it.”

“I want to feel you,” Bruce countered, putting his un-lubed hand on John’s thigh, “Just for a minute.”

John let his wrist go, leaning back with a confident smirk and spread legs. “Just hurry, hm?”

He squirmed slightly as Bruce slid a finger in. Bruce concentrated on spreading all the lubricant around, adding another after a slight curl of his index finger made John give an appreciate hum. Bruce added a third, watching John bite his lower lip and stare back like he was just waiting for Bruce to snap. The truth was Bruce was close to doing just that; it was fascinating to watch his hand sink into the hot, puckered hole, but the heat and the slick constriction around his fingers teased him with the thought of how his _dick_ was going to feel in there, and it was enough to drive any man over the edge of reason.

He’d spread them slightly, wondering just how tight it was going to be, and John moaned and squirmed down on his hand. “Get _in_ me already,” he whined, trying to hook a leg around Bruce’s waist.

There was no point in asking if he was sure when John was practically pleading with him. Bruce shifted into a sitting position, curling John’s legs around his waist and feeling the tip of his head slide against the lubricated asshole as he lined up with it. He pushed partway in, seeing John’s cock throb as John groaned anew, and thought was almost lost to him.

_Fuck him,_ John was _tight._

John gave a shaky pant as Bruce pushed further in, grabbing onto John’s hips as he thrust all the way inside. It was so hot and constricting Bruce thought he would come right then and there.

“Oh, Bruce, we’re…finally…” John muttered, growing lost to the world outside of sheer sexuality.

Bruce tested a thrust, and John bit his lip. He didn’t look to be in pain at all – he was telling the truth about practicing on himself. The thought of it drove Bruce to thrust again, rewarding him with a wobbly grin.

“You’re so _thick,”_ John gasped. “I _knew_ your dick would be big…”

He smirked, thrusting in again, working himself into a rhythm.

“I – _ooh_ – I never thought I’d get to really-really _do_ this,” John admitted, reaching up towards Bruce with both arms.

Bruce complied, letting go of John’s hips to slide himself into something of a missionary position. He kissed John’s jaw as he thrusted deep, igniting a little grunt as John’s nails dug into his back. He kept kissing everything in reach, from cheeks to ears to hairline to brows to lips, alternating between deeper strokes and faster ones, trying his best to keep his cool even though he could feel every bit of John’s front pressing against him. _(Fuck_ , John’s cock was _twitching_ when Bruce hit his prostate just right.)

John nestled his cheek against Bruce’s own, his hot breath cascading over the shell of Bruce’s damaged ear as his tongue wriggled into the hole at the base of his earlobe, sending a deep shudder through Bruce’s whole body. _“Harder,”_ he whispered nastily. Bruce didn’t have to see him to know John was grinning ear to ear.

He wanted harder, he was going to _get it._

Bruce shifted John’s hips into a better angle and braced himself against the mattress beneath them, and thrusted as deep and hard as he could go without making himself see stars. The sound of slick skin slapping together wasn’t as loud as John’s lewd cries, most of which was moans in-between shouts of _‘yes’_ and _‘right there’_ accompanied by _‘Bruce!'_

It was incredibly difficult not to think about the man writhing and bucking under him when Bruce was buried deep inside him, let alone when his lover was clawing desperately at his back like he was going to disappear any moment. Still, he tried to think of anything else, just to make himself last long enough to get John to orgasm.

But it didn’t matter what he thought of, the fact of the matter was that John was calling out for him, and his rock-hard erection was pressing between them, and John’s ass was so tight and slick and the man himself was practically sex on long ghost-white legs. Bruce was partway into a thrust when he came, groaning louder than he thought he ever had as he saw sparks behind his eyelids, and John hitched a breath as Bruce’s cock was shoved harshly inside one last time, spurting cum inside the well-worn condom, and John craned his neck back and gave one last long moan, following Bruce into orgasm.

John was breathing hard when Bruce carefully pulled out, looking like he was dying the sweetest death he could have ever imagined as Bruce rolled over and threw the used condom carelessly to the floor. Bruce leaned into kiss him once more, getting a soft response and a few gentle strokes of tongue, before leaving John with a deeply satisfied smile.

_“Oh_ , that was… That was _just_ as amazing as I thought it would be,” John whispered, his voice even raspier than before. “Can we, uh, just…nap for a bit?”

“Sure.”

It took some strained maneuvering, but they both managed to shuffle themselves under the covers, no cares about how sticky or sweaty they both were. John cuddled up to Bruce the moment he’d settled on his back, slowly running his hand over the sparse black hairs on his chest.

“I love you, Bruce.”

Bruce glanced over at him, seeing nothing less than utmost love and devotion shining in the bright acidic pools that were John’s eyes, and he felt compelled to lean in and kiss him one more time. “I love you, too, John.”

With one last tiny giggle into the pillow, John shut his eyes, and Bruce followed suit, feeling that for once, everything had gone just right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNEW I could work some hard-core smut in here! Even the confession portion worked out just the way I originally wanted it to! Our ship has finally sailed!!! Look at it go!!! Of course our happy couple is going to have to confront some dangerous waters in the very near future, but let's just enjoy the moment. This is actually the first time I've ever written m/m smut; I've only every written m/f piv sex and anal pegging before, so please tell me what you think! It's nice to write anal from the penetrator's pov this time around. I had a hell of a time writing pegging from the bottom's pov for _A Ghost Too Far_ , but it ended up being pretty damn good, too. (By the way, I can't recommend that story enough, it's my sweet baby of an epic romance. It's also somewhat kinky...if you're into that.)
> 
> As always, a special thank you to all those who left comments, kudos, likes, reblogs, bookmarks, and anyone that subscribed! I love you guys very much!!!!! Your words and actions mean a lot to me, and are constantly motivating me to perfect my work and give it to you with a nice big bow! And a SUPER special thanks for @littlebigdalek on tumblr, who's currently working on a Russian translation of this story! I've never ever had a fic translated before, so I'm super excited, even if it takes a while! You guys are fucking a-maz-ing! ₍₍ ( ๑॔˃̶◡ ˂̶๑॓)◞♡
> 
> But... I'd also like to give a very special shout-out to both Team Four Star (specifically Ben, Grant, and Kirran of YouTube's TFSGaming), for getting me back into Batman with their TellTale playthroughs and being the main reason I ever started shipping batjokes in the first place, and to DesdemonaKaylose here on Ao3, whose TelltaleBatjokes series - _You Will Remember That_ and _You Are A House On Fire_ \- are a constant source of inspiration. Even if neither party ever read this, it's fine, I just want to express my utmost appreciation for their work; I wouldn't be writing this story if it weren't for them! I know this a strange chapter to give this kind of thanks in, but I finally talked myself into doing it and felt it best to just go ahead and spill my guts asap. So may I just say, _thank you,_ and may all your latest endeavors reach a satisfying and fulfilling conclusion! (•‾⌣‾•)و ̑̑♡
> 
> (Edit 8/1/18: fixed all the embarrassing typos/grammar fails/strangely worded things! It's no longer a mess! Hurray!!)


	14. Aria for Primo Uomo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Important Spoiler Tags:** mentions of canon-typical kink

The shrill beeping of Bruce’s phone was the rudest awakening he’d ever experienced. His eyes snapped open, staring at the ceiling, and he almost startled himself when he realized there was an arm laying on his chest under the covers, the palm resting over his heart. John was nestled against him, one of his thin legs shifting over Bruce’s knee, his face scrunched with annoyance.

 _“Uggghhh,”_ he grumbled with the voice of a thoroughly exhausted man, “sounds like a drill rattling on the floor.”

“That’s the phone’s alert system,” Bruce explained, his voice sounding just as gruff. “I need to get up.”

John grunted in protest, but retreated anyway, shifting onto his back.

Bruce had no idea how long he’d slept for, but it was still dark out; the lamp was still on by the bed, highlighting the profile of John’s angular face. Bruce could have easily just laid there and admired him for a while, trying to commit the little shifts in colors and lines and shapes to memory. Instead he tossed the thick blankets away from both of them and forced himself out of bed, keeping in mind that they had important work to do and that there would be time to admire his lover later.

 _Lover._ The thought made him shiver; or perhaps it was just the cold air hitting his naked body. He felt dirty. Dried sweat, saliva, and semen stuck to his skin, little reminders of just what he’d indulged himself in, and he realized that for once he hadn’t woken up with the tiny bit of guilt scratching in the back of his throat after a night of sex. That part of his life was normally filled with one-night-stands and short relationships he didn’t truly invest himself in. (How could he, when they only saw what he _let_ them see? They weren’t part of his crusade. His _mission._ They were flimsy coats of paint for his mask. Convenient cover stories and sexual outlets. _People,_ but people he would only trust as far as he could throw them.)

John Doe’s name might have been synonymous with an unknown – _perpetrator, victim, customer, corpse_ – but there was no one else like him, and certainly not in any other point in Bruce’s life. Why should this part be any different than that?

Bruce stepped carefully over the used condom he’d flung to the carpet the night before. (He winced at the sight, knowing he’d have to clean that up properly later.) The phone was buzzing away in the pocket of his jeans, which he’d kicked carelessly away hours ago.

John gave an inappropriate whistle as Bruce bent over. _“Wow,_ Bruce, you could probably smash _bones_ with those buns of steel.”

Bruce turned the annoying alarm off, shooting John a chastising stare, which was returned with a cocky grin. “The drive is decrypted. We should go check it out.”

“What, _now?”_ John pouted, sitting up anyway. The soft sheets slid away from his chest like satin, pooling into his lap as he rubbed at his eyes; Bruce thought longingly about pulling the sheet down slowly, just to watch the material slide against all the curves of John’s form. (Later. _Much_ later.) “How long did we sleep for?”

“Less than four hours.”

John sighed into his hands. “Better than nothing, I guess,” he grumbled. “Can we at least have coffee?”

“There’s a machine in the cave.”

John peeked out over his hands, landing right onto Bruce’s exposed penis. “Can you put on some pants, too? You’re, uh, _distracting_ me,” he explained, the corner of his mouth curling up. “You have _no_ idea how much I want to just pull you in and start sucking.”

Bruce felt his face burn so hot he no longer felt the chill on his skin. He quickly retreated into the closet to get some clean boxer-briefs, hearing John’s laugh follow him in.

He thought about getting dressed properly, or at least rinsing himself off, but settled on just grabbing his quilted robe to cover the rest of him, figuring he’d change into the Batsuit sooner rather than later, given that it was just after four in the morning. It was certainly more comfortable than any other options, and it was easier to clean than anything else available.

John was pulling up his slacks when Bruce re-emerged, only to linger in the doorway as he found himself unable to stop his eyes from roaming over the pale expanse of skin on display. He could practically taste it again. The heat from his embarrassment started to travel south, and Bruce couldn’t help but want to just give into temptation and march over to kiss John’s neck and keep the lovers’ scene going for a little while longer.

“You’re _staring at meee,”_ John teased in a sing-song tone, eyes flashing over to Bruce as he began to button his shirt from the bottom-up. (He’d put darts in to keep it shaped to his frame. They were much more noticeable now that Bruce’s eyes were wandering everywhere.) “You keep that up and I’m going to have to strip all over again, Bruce. Don’t we have somewhere to be?”

“I was just thinking,” Bruce lied, knowing that being honest about wanting more sex would lead right to it. “I didn’t think about your bruises last night - the ones on your back. Did they hurt?”

John giggled, sounding somewhat sinister. “Oh, Bruce, of _course_ they did. But I _loved_ it,” he said with a sharp, shark-like smile. “The way you pressed your fingers into them, how you kept me pulled _tight_ against you… It was so… _possessive,”_ he purred, giving Bruce a lecherous stare that made the billionaire’s knees feel weak. “I was surprised you let go of me after all that. I would’ve liked to wake up choking on your hair.”

Damn it, John was teasing him. Bruce wasn’t going to give into the bait. (He wanted to. _God_ how he wanted to. He could’ve _easily_ shot back that John might be choking on something else if he didn’t shut his mouth.)

“If you wanted to be cuddled, all you had to do was ask,” Bruce shrugged, going to pick up the dark green tie that John had thrown on a nearby chair, still tied together in a loop. “I’m just not used to sleeping on my side.”

John snickered, rolling up one of the sleeves. “I already _knew_ that! I was almost afraid you’d crush me under those thick pectorals of yours the other night…”

Bruce strolled towards him until they were face to face, and threw the loop of the tie over John’s neck, watching his eyes glimmer like green topaz through his short dark lashes. Bruce yanked the tie closed, enjoying the little startled gurgle it caused alongside a spark of thrill in John’s gaze, and he smoothed it down John’s front, making sure it was tied properly. “And if you want to be choked,” he continued, his playboy-smirk completely natural, “I can indulge in a little kink now and then.”

John was reminding him of one of those goldfish with the constantly-gaping mouths. A funny noise came out of the back of his throat, like the whine of a thirsty dog.

“Now come on, we’ve got work to do,” Bruce finished, gently pushing John’s jaw closed with a finger before turning to leave for the cave, feeling particularly smug, even as he felt his hands burn with the thought of what John would look like in the midst of something as dangerous as breath-play. (He remembered one of his longer-term girlfriends from several years ago liked to be strangled with his tie. He couldn’t remember her name, but he remembered the way her eyes rolled back in her head; they’d been a darker green than John’s, closer to pine than anything, but Bruce recalled them now, and he could easily picture John in her place.)

“Hey, wait for me!” John shouted after him, a clunking noise making it sound like he was hurrying to put on the plum ankle-high boots Bruce had bought for him. Bruce stopped at the doorway and leaned there to wait until John was next to him before heading towards the stairs, not caring that he’d left the downstairs hallway lights on all night. It made it a hell of a lot easier to see; he just hoped the two patrolmen outside wouldn’t choose now to start peeking in through the windows. “Meanie,” John muttered, grabbing Bruce’s hand out of his bathrobe pocket and lacing their fingers together as they walked. “You shouldn’t just try to run away after teasing me like that, Bruce.”

“Sorry,” Bruce said dishonestly, “You deserved it for trying to get me back into bed.”

John gave a nervous little giggle, swinging their hands a bit. “You mean it was working?”

“I have years of stamina training, John. It’ll take more than that.”

“Ooh, I _know_ you’ve got stamina,” John rumbled, knocking his shoulder into Bruce’s as they started to descend the steps. “I’ll just have to chip away at it. Just you _wait,_ Bruce. One day I’m going to get your Batmobile revving with only a _glance.”_

Bruce raised a brow, questioning the silly substitute for the euphemism, but the words quickly vanished. John’s excited grin was accompanied by his tongue running over his teeth, and the absolutely predatory gesture made Bruce want to shudder with nerves _and_ arousal. “We’ll see about that,” he replied, trying to keep his cool as he turned his gaze back towards the hall, noticing in his peripheral vision that their steps were synchronized with the slight swings of their hands, like clockwork. He focused on it as John began to laugh, low and taunting, making Bruce feel like his ribs were vibrating slightly with the sound.

“It’s funny that it’s like this now,” John muttered, squeezing his hand. Bruce felt the rough skin of the long scar from the Batarang brush against his palm. “If you had told me back in the control room that we’d eventually be holding hands after a romantic evening together, I would’ve thought you’d completely flown the coop. Or, uh, _colony_ , in your case.” Bruce glanced over to him, seeing a soft, reflective look on his face, despite the humor in his voice. “I mean, I still think you’ve got a few screws loose for actually considering us friends during all that, but…I’m still glad you did.”

Bruce squeezed his hand back, leading the way to the billiard room with a small smile in return. “Me, too.” He passed by the portrait without even thinking about it, and didn’t let go of John until he had to fix the clock’s hands.

John clapped his hands together, giggling to himself in excitement as the door’s mechanism clicked open. “I never get tired of seeing this! How did you even _think_ of using a _clock_ as a door?”

“This spot was the best access point to the cave,” Bruce explained, stepping onto the elevator with John following in stride, “I figured it was easier to hide than a secret panel or a safe someone could get into. The grandfather clock still keeps real time, so it blends right in with the decor.” John hummed beside him, sounding interested. “I considered having a fireman’s pole installed elsewhere for quick access, too, but I couldn’t find a good spot for it.”

“A closet?” John suggested, tapping his arm with his fingers. “You could put _that_ behind a secret panel.”

“I thought about that, but I’d have to make a new one. The ones in the house aren’t in any convenient places."

“Hmm, hmm, _hmm._ I guess it’ll be easier to think about when I move in one day.”

He was already thinking about that? (Well, Bruce had already considered it, too, months ago…) “What, you don’t want a place of your own first?”

“I…know I _should,”_ John replied, avoiding looking at him, “but you… You live _here._ I already have to put up with a whole city standing between us when I’m in Arkham,” he said with a somewhat sour note before his voice turned more hopeful, “I want to be able to know that when I come in through my front door, there’s a good chance _you’re_ behind it. Is it… Is that going too far?”

Bruce knew he had to answer carefully. He wasn’t delusional – John was still in recovery, and still very… _fixated_ on him. He could accept John’s hefty celebrity-crush that dated back several years, and he honestly didn’t see anything wrong with his drive to know everything about him – mostly because the feeling was pretty mutual, and Bruce’s public face was very different from his private one – but he had to put _some_ kind of guideline there for him.

“A little bit,” Bruce answered, seeing John’s face fall slightly, “We both have lived with other people our whole lives. It’s good for both of us to find out what we’re like when we’re alone for a while. Besides,” he continued, smiling a little as he took hold of John’s hand again, “I’d enjoy seeing you in your own space again. You brighten up any place you live in.”

John looked thoughtful. “Would I have to live there for very long?”

“A couple of months, maybe. It depends on how long the halfway house would want to keep you,” he explained, remembering that John had apparently barely spent a month in the one he’d been assigned upon his first release. They’d likely keep him longer the next time around, and while it pained him to think they’d be apart for far more than he wanted, he knew it would be the right thing to do in the long run.

“…can I call you every day, then?”

“Sure.”

“Even at your office?”

“Sometimes.”

John grinned mischievously. “Even if you were out on patrol?”

“Now _that’s_ stretching it,” Bruce chided.

John laughed a little as the elevator finally came to a halt, and he strode over to the coffee machine in the corner as Bruce headed right for the Batcomputer, where the retractable hard drive was sitting on the edge of the interface’s surface, plugged in and whirring away with a light mechanical grind.

Bruce was grateful that Dr. Crane had a habit of keeping organized. On the surface, there was almost nothing not sorted into appropriately-labeled folders or titled strangely – the only exception to this were a handful of pictures, all with bizarre hash-code names that seemed to be downloaded from bloggr. They were nothing important; just a few seasonal photos from around the states, mostly depicting forests in autumn. Bruce didn’t care about what other photos the doctor kept. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see more of the same mixed in with grisly crime scene photos, given that he had a folder labeled _‘Murders – Unsolved’._

A quick glance at the thumbnails in the _Video_ folder told Bruce that he videotaped some of his patient sessions. He saw Heather Fortescue’s face on the first one, looking heavily stoned, and the date showed it was taken a few months ago, likely during one of the doctor’s earlier experimental drugs.

He saw John’s next to it, clearly focused on something other than wherever the camera lens was placed, and Bruce immediately decided he would only comb over those if he absolutely had to. He wasn’t about to let John be triggered, and it felt like a far worse violation of his privacy than the hand-written notes had been.

Bruce back-tracked and started searching through the document folder. He actually had folders for _Fan-mail_ and _Hate-mail,_ along with more copies of his old published works, but what intrigued him the most was the _Potentials_ folder _._

It required a password. That could only be a good sign; the Batcomputer’s rainbow table picked through it like it wasn’t even there.

Black Gate Prison, Gotham Blimp Corp., Gotham Central Police Department, Gotham Sky Rail System, Gotham Water Filtration Plant… _Wayne Enterprises_.

Bruce felt panic rising up his neck. Documents, all .pdfs, showing intricate blueprints that no normal citizen should have – all marked with little red ‘x’s over points that Bruce guessed were the most open to having fear-gas bombs planted. On top of those, there were maps of Gotham city’s roadways, with screen-captures of heavy traffic times in the bottom corner provided by some search engine. There were red circles and question marks around certain buildings, that when Bruce zoomed into, he noticed were all public places.

The Main Street Diner was circled, too, with no question mark beside it like the others.

The attack on it had been _premeditated._ It wasn’t just something he’d thought of on a whim. The dates on the file details showed he’d been thinking about it for at least a month.

“Black Gate?!” John shouted beside him, gripping his coffee mug much too hard, “He wants to release that stuff into the _prison?!”_

Bruce hadn’t even realized he’d had a mug placed down on the desk panel. He considered chugging it, just to feel something other than dread and deep disgust. “That’s something he’s been considering. He has blueprints for several city buildings and businesses, including Wayne Enterprises.”

“That _fucking creep!”_ John’s mug sloshed a bit of coffee onto the metal desk as it almost slammed down, but thankfully it didn’t get on the controls.

 _“John,”_ Bruce said dangerously, “watch your hands!”

He pulled back, looking properly ashamed for a moment, and sank back into a wheeled chair he must have borrowed from the workbench around the corner. “Sorry,” he muttered with a seething glare at the screen.

“I know you’re upset, but getting angry in here will only cause more problems.”

John continued to glower. “I know.”

“Can you be calm?”

“…maybe,” he grumbled, giving a shrug. “How aren’t _you_ pissed off?”

“I _am,”_ Bruce growled.

John’s jaw shifted as his tongue swept over teeth behind his lips, looking like he was thinking about whether or not that was true. “What else is in here?” He asked, staring at the screen like it was insulting him personally.

“It seems he collected some specific targets. He clearly chose the diner ahead of time, but he considered some other public places first. If he’s starting small, then he’ll likely target a larger business or local building before moving onto something like the train station or the interstate.”

John’s eyes scanned over the file list. “He didn’t happen to highlight any abandoned buildings on that city map?”

“The park’s circled like the rest; it’s the closest thing to a free space he could be hiding in.”

“Library?”

“It wasn’t a potential target, but that’s a possibility. There’s no room to build bombs inside, though, he’d have to find somewhere else to do that.” Bruce went back to the file manager on the farthest screen. The _Research_ folder might just hold more of the same, but Bruce opened it anyway.

There were files labeled with patient’s names dating back to last year, but they were small, and seeming to be just basic patient information. (Bruce saw John’s old mug shot flash up with the rest, the green hair and wild grin standing out even when it was partially concealed behind other documents.) There was nothing labeled ‘FDR’ or ‘Fear Toxin’ or even something as basic as ‘Tests’… A few e-books Bruce recognized as studies on the effects of hallucinogenic drugs, a couple of short articles on study of mob mentality, and…

Gotham’s Dead Parliament – the history of the Court of Owls.

Bruce opened it, scrolling until he saw the summary.

> _Ever wonder why there are gargoyles on Gotham’s oldest buildings?_
> 
> _Ever ask why certain spaces are off limits to the public?_
> 
> _The complete history of the city founders' notorious cult is now revealed for the first time, from their religious beginnings to their violent end._

Bruce speed-read the table of contents. There was one just on Arkham Asylum, which he presumed was simply discussing the chamber underneath and not the asylum itself, since the building didn’t exist until the early 1900’s. A quick search revealed an image buried halfway in the document depicting a map of the old city, before its massive expansion, and sure enough there were several little owl heads stamped over certain buildings, including where Arkham would’ve been built about a hundred and fifty years later.

“Bruce,” John began, staring at his leg bent over his lap with an intense look of deep thought, “how many cemeteries are there in Gotham?”

Bruce breathed deep, reminding himself that John’s mind worked a bit differently, and just because he hadn’t been reading along on the screen didn’t mean he wasn’t taking this seriously. _(He wouldn’t have gotten so angry earlier if he didn’t.)_ “About forty, including all the churchyards.”

“When I was here alone yesterday, I was trying to think of any place a guy like Crane would go,” he started to explain as if Bruce had asked. Bruce threw away the thought of even asking him why he’d change the subject; John _always_ had a point, even if he did take some odd paths to get there. “It has to be unsettling, secluded, and fitting with his little set of _aesthetics._ I thought at first he might be hiding out in the abandoned carnival, like I did with Harley -” Bruce wanted to frown instinctively at the mention of the disgraced psychiatrist, despite the name being said carelessly without any hint of nostalgia – “but he doesn’t really feel like the copycat _type._ Staying at a motel for a night really through me off… So I started thinking, since he’s not there, he had to be somewhere big enough to move around in, but devoid of intruders, and we searched the warehouses and abandoned homes, so where _else_ would a hardcore horror fan go to be creepy but a mausoleum?”

Bruce could follow that logic, but there was the nagging thought of John deliberately keeping the idea to himself, even as their eyes met to bore holes into one another. “You thought of that yesterday?” Bruce asked, careful not to let his suspicion seep into his tone.

“Vaguely,” John shrugged, “but it was on the table with a couple of other ideas, and I was kind of hoping we’d find something concrete while we were out.”

That was said a little _too_ casually… There was the thought that maybe John was manipulating things into his favor. He _did_ say that he felt they never had enough time together. Perhaps this was his way of _forcing_ it…

(No, Bruce was probably just being paranoid. John’s voice over the comm-link in the diner had been sincere… He was sure of _that,_ at least.)

“That,” John admitted, sounding somewhat ashamed, “and the whole _diner_ thing really did a _number_ on me. I couldn’t think straight after I found out about that.”

Bruce pushed his suspicion aside. Whatever reason John had for keeping his ideas to himself, it wasn’t important right now – finding Crane before he did any more damage came first.

“Next time, say something, even if you don’t have anything solid to back it up with, John,” Bruce replied with the practiced patience he usually reserved for Tiffany. Bruce pulled up the computer’s map commands, making it cross-reference any cemeteries with mausoleums and any of the known locations of the old Court of Owls’ chambers from the e-book. “I think you’ve got the right idea. He seemed interested in the Court of Owls, too; if there’s one of their underground chambers under a cemetery, that’s probably where he’ll be.”

The holographic map flickered to life, and John pushed his chair over to it, looking a little more enthusiastic.

Bruce searched over the map. There was apparently a Court chamber under the Gotham Library, City Hall, and even part of Gotham University.

And sure enough, there was a marker over Gotham Cemetery, the oldest and largest graveyard in the city. If John hadn’t mentioned cemeteries, Bruce would have guessed the University would be a good hiding place, given Crane’s history as a teacher there.

A plan formed quickly – there was a very good chance Crane was hunkered down there before he was going to make his next move. He could get the Batcomputer to engineer an antitoxin from the samples he’d accumulated over the past couple of days, and take a couple of vials with them in case Crane put up a fight. It should be a much faster process than before. “I’m going to get a couple of antitoxins generated and go gear up.” He set up the software, taking up a third of the large monitor, and took a couple of the syringe-gun’s tubes to put in the appropriate slots. “Get a message out to Tiffany and Iman that we’re heading to Gotham Cemetery in the meantime.”

John grinned over at him. “On it,” he affirmed, gliding back over to the console with a push of his heels on the metal tile. “Do you mind if I read through some of this thing? Might come in handy.”

“Go ahead.”

The Batsuit’s armor plating always took time to put on, even when Bruce had been at the top of his game, but it seemed like he couldn’t get it on fast enough lately. Bruce had no qualms about getting into it across the cave from John now – before, he’d changed behind the car, completely out of the other man’s line of sight, as if he expected him to peep. He honestly wouldn’t have put it past him, given that John’s focus was on him about eighty percent of the time no matter how those fast those gears in his head whirled away on other topics. The idea of him peeking before this turn in their relationship was worrying and thrilling, constantly keeping Bruce on his toes when he clasped the suit pieces into place. Much like when John had caught him on camera, he supposed, he might have thought John would take everything the wrong way, where Bruce was afraid to go.

Now the thought of such a scenario wasn’t quite _reassuring,_ but it was just… _there._ Just a possibility, an aspect of John that Bruce no longer had to mind.

The thought of him admiring him that day from the chair Bruce normally sat in was something else, though. Certainly _not_ something he should dwell on when he was getting ready to go out and throw Crane in a jail cell.

Bruce pulled the skin-tight top over his head, feeling his unclean skin grind against the material. If they were wrong and Crane wasn’t hiding in the cemetery, where would he go? What was his next step?

The list of potential targets was rather long, and they would all be time consuming to check thoroughly. If it came down to it, he might need all hands on deck, and they might have to split up to search.

He thought back to Wayne Enterprises – that might be Dr. Crane’s next logical step up, if he thought the events at the Main Street Diner were sufficient. The GCPD and Black Gate prison would take a much longer time to put into motion, given the amount of people needed for that kind of operation, so they _should_ be safe for the moment; the train system was a good bet, as it could be a simple matter of shoving some canisters in each car on similar timer devices like the diner, or else just plant them throughout the individual stations to go off during commute hours, and it was easy to access; the water plant was potentially higher up on the list, as implied a massive scale for Crane’s sick experiments; the Gotham Blimp Corporation was a wild card, as it was easy to steal a blimp but difficult to modify it. And as Bruce only knew of a handful of licensed blimp operators, and neither Crane nor any of his hired goons were among them, he figured they would either crash and burn or kidnap someone to drive _if_ their goal was to unleash the toxic gas on certain areas of the city. If it wasn’t, it would be a step down from the diner, as it wasn’t as nearly as populated and had a wider area of operation…

It was at this thought that Bruce wondered to himself why it was that Jonathan Crane was doing it in the first place. He initially believed it was just for some sick, twisted experiment to prove whatever theory he had on the nature of human fears. It was what he was specialized in. What he _fixated_ on.

Bruce paused as one of his gauntlet’s clicked into place. He hadn’t asked himself _why_ Crane was obsessed with the topic. Like with John’s obsession with Bruce, he’d just considered it something that was _there;_ he could feel the shape of the reason, guess a little as to what it entailed based off of experience, but didn’t bother looking into it. He’d been afraid of what he’d find if he pulled away that protective sheet of ignorance.

The lone picture in Crane’s house. A young boy, standing between his beaming parents, looking like the perfect combination of their DNA. John had guessed they were dead; Bruce had felt like that was all he needed to know.

Bruce pulled up the search function on his gauntlet, ignoring the uncomfortable lump in his throat.

Doctor Jonathan Crane, son of Isaac and Wanda Crane, born in the upper parts of the southern United States and raised by an aunt in a rural county not far from Gotham from the ages of nine to eighteen. Authorities wrote that Isaac and Wanda Crane perished in a fire at an amusement park’s haunted house in 1984, the cause of which was unknown, but suspected as faulty wiring. The local police department labeled Jonathan as the only survivor, with witnesses claiming he’d fallen out a broken window into the shallow moat that surrounded the fake castle’s exterior.

The police file and news report made no mention of Jonathan crying; a child psychiatrist’s evaluation had been stuck in the police report, saying he’d been quiet and withdrawn, but he showed signs of understanding what had happened, despite not being able to explain how the fire had started.

Bruce felt sympathy building in his chest. He’d felt it for Vicki Vale, for Edward Nygma, for every overly-dangerous criminal he had to fight. There was never any completely black areas of villainy in Gotham, anymore. The driving forces buried deep behind evil actions didn’t cancel them out, but it did make them seem more human.

Bruce remembered, clear as day, that John had told him Crane wasn’t afraid of anything, and they both recognized that the doctor was incredibly independent with few people he seemed to connect to. His obsession with horror, with the nature of fear, drove him to try to draw out the fears of his patients.

A thirty-four-year old incident could explain some of that.

Like Crane, Bruce had little to fear after losing his parents. They were both independent, both driven, both generally closed off, and both wallowing in a loss that would never really stop hurting.

But _unlike_ him, Bruce had _other_ people he cared about. He had a whole _city_ he cared about. He had a drive to help Gotham, to _save_ it, from itself and from any force that might try tear it apart. He wasn’t corrupt, he wasn’t without compassion, and he wasn’t _alone._

Resolve filled him as he flexed the fingers in his other gauntlet. He was going to stop Crane. He was going to stop everyone who followed in his footsteps. He was going to make sure the city would never get turned upside down ever again.

John was right:  he was always Batman, costume or not. He was always _going_ to be, for himself and for Gotham.

Bruce marched over to the enormous computer, his cowl in his hand, seeing John bent over the desk with the orange plastic bag from the other day sitting at his feet and an empty coffee mug by his arm. He heard him coming, apparently, and when he whirled around in his chair, Bruce felt a rush travel up his chest towards his head and spread out.

John was back in his trench-coat and wearing makeup, but of a much different color. Black eyeliner and orange eyeshadow made the greens of his irises pop like nothing else, and the full face of white paint stood out starkly next to his dark green hair and currant-red lipstick, giving him a look that was off-putting for anyone who had never seen him before, and something Bruce could only feel was both beautiful and very _John._

“You ready to go?” John asked as if he didn’t know he was the most gorgeous sight in the whole house.

“What prompted the new look?” Bruce asked, letting himself take in the whole picture.

“Well, I figured that if we were going to capture Crane, I’d want to look like _myself._ The other face doesn’t make it obvious that it’s _me.”_

 _Capture._ He’d used the word _capture._ Not ‘get’, not ‘find’, not ‘hunt’, no other vague term that could be interpreted as a violent measure of revenge. _Capture,_ plain and simple.

John was rambling, oblivious to Bruce’s sudden desire to swoop down and kiss him. “Do you think the orange is too much? I liked the hot pink I saw, but I felt it wasn’t seasonal enough, and the purple wasn’t as bright as I _thought_ it would be when I tested it on my hand yesterday…”

Bruce put a hand on his shoulder, getting him to quiet with a look. (There would be time to kiss him later. _Lots_ of time.)

“Oh, uh, sorry – bad time for it, huh?” John chuckled nervously, standing and dusting himself off unnecessarily. “I got the word out to Iman and Tiffany, but I didn’t get anything back. Do you want to hear what I found on the Court?”

“Tell me in the car,” Bruce advised, putting the cowl over his head. “The sooner we get to the cemetery, the better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this chapter was a lot longer with some more action packed in, but story planning always has wiggle room, and I felt it important to look in Bruce's head a bit more before we set off for the next major act. Also, I didn't originally plan to have a few titles referencing opera, but I found it fit really well with points in the story, especially since I was so happy with "Nightfall's Crescendo"! So this particular title is referencing Bruce as the leading man of the story. I'm hoping I can work in one just for John, too... 
> 
> And yes, I wanted John to have similar makeup to Villain!Joker, but I wanted it to have a bit different coloring, and of course John's hair is in it's normal style rather than the sleeked look. (That hair was _great,_ but it's definitively Villain!Joker's.) I think a nice bright orange would work well on him! It'd make the pretty green of his eyes stand out, and it's very in the spirit of the Halloween season. 
> 
> BTW, I keep noticing all these dumb little mistakes I made last chapter! They always seem to crop up after I post, but I swear this last time was the worst it's ever been... If you downloaded the story before now, wait a day after this chapter is posted and I'll have "La Petite Mort" all fixed up for a smoother read.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for all your kind words and kudos!!!! I feel very loved every time I get a notification!!! (๑ˊ͈ ॢꇴ ˋ͈)〜♡॰ॱ I hope you know I'm sending that love back with sheer willpower!


	15. Dionysian Graveside Rites

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the little hiatus, but this chapter was a doozy, and I really wanted to get it right. Besides, it's still Sunday on the west coast...
> 
>  **Important Spoiler Tags:** unhealthy talk of death/depression, alcohol (mention), public drunkenness, canon-typical violence

Stepping into the wet earth beyond the ancient black gates was like walking into another world. As if Bruce had stepped beyond Gotham, despite still being very firmly inside it.

Gotham had always been a city shrouded in seemingly eternal dusk, despite the glinting glass of its towers. Clouds covering the sky for what seemed like two-thirds of the year; dark bricks and dreary colors that made up its architecture spanning decades; gargoyles that perched outside and inside of Gotham’s oldest buildings, ever watchful of the evil forces within the city, but never moving from their stone perches to stop it.

The corruption that sank its teeth into the city, spattering its streets thick with blood of the innocent as if trying to drain the life right out of it, was what made it truly dark. It made Bruce feel that the rosy fingers of dawn would never quite reach them.

And yet, when Bruce crossed the threshold into Gotham Cemetery, such feelings slipped away. There was no urban landscape to weigh heavy reminders of the city on his shoulders. There were only headstones, and the people lying beneath the foliage that were so old that he had no need to question what happened to them to bring them there. No mysterious blood trails, no fresh corpses lying behind dumpsters.

Just peace.

Bruce knew that if he walked far enough, he’d reach his parent’s shared plot. He used to go there to feel resolved for the mission he’d taken up for their plight, letting the terrible ache that burst forth at the sight of their headstone sink back into him for hours – but the grim image of their gravesite had been long tainted by the knowledge of their true natures, hidden behind his childhood’s eyes. Now something ugly always twisted around him with the heartache of loss.

(Disgust. Disbelief. A _different_ resolve, not to make them proud, not to avenge their deaths, but to be better than they ever were. The latter always rose when he looked at their portrait, but it always seized him entirely when he saw their grave. Like the reality of everything would set in with the bad taste in his mouth.)

Dead leaves, orange and brown and red, littered the ground in chaotic patterns, wet and unsatisfying to step on as Bruce and John made their way past the old graves, the heavy boots of Batman digging into the dirt with every step as the lighter, pointed boots of Joker seemed to saunter.

His eyes were going everywhere, roaming over chiseled worn names like he was expecting to see one he recognized. His hands were kept entirely in the trench-coat’s pockets, but Bruce could see movement underneath, like he was fiddling with something.

“Batman, help me out here,” he muttered, his red-painted lips curled into a smile. _“Dans Macabre,_ or the _Masquerade_ waltz?”

Bruce’s initial response would’ve just been _what,_ despite knowing the pieces of music John was referring to, but since he was inside the Batsuit, he always got more time to think. He liked classical less than he did jazz, and when he _did_ enjoy classical it was always the loud performances, but he had a soft spot for the unusual pieces. _“Dans Macabre.”_

“Ha! It _is_ very fitting with this scenery,” Joker replied, and after a moment, began to softly hum the tune from the very beginning.

“You shouldn’t hum while we’re underground,” Bruce advised, keeping his eyes peeled for the mausoleum. He knew where it was, but there weren’t many lampposts in the cemetery, and Bruce rarely made nighttime visits there. The night vision ability of his cowl wasn’t really necessary, though, as it would only falter when they came upon one of the glowing orange lights in the old-fashioned lamps.

“I know,” Joker answered mid-hum, “but I can enjoy it while I can, can’t I? I’ll stop if I see someone.”

It was strange, having this impromptu background music accompanying Batman on a mission. Part of him wanted to tell Joker to stop so they could focus, but another part was actively enjoying it. It wasn’t a real distraction, and Bruce doubted that they would encounter any grave-diggers during a rainy, muddy evening like this.

As they continued to walk, it was even _stranger_ to feel the urge to reach over and grab Joker’s hand. They were in a cemetery, going to confront a serious threat, and for some reason Bruce wanted to swing their hands like they did on the staircase at home.

Joker had been merrily humming away, chuckling a little as they passed a grave for the unfortunately-named ‘Seymour Buttz’, when Bruce spotted movement and grabbed onto his elbow to stop him and pull him behind a rather large stone marker as he turned off the light clipped to his cape.

A group of people – teenagers, perhaps…or college students, judging by the burliness of two of them – were walking across the grass ahead, weaving in-between the graves, talking and laughing. It was as if they’d left a party nearby, despite the lack of houses or apartments in the direction of their departure… A costume party, clearly:  one girl dressed like a short, demonic hooker; another girl was a traditional angel, but in torn sleeves to show off biceps that rivaled John’s; two boys were dressed in togas, one of whom was drunkenly clinging onto the other and wore a sash with the words ‘PARTY GOD’ in big golden letters; the last person, who Bruce couldn’t tell the gender of at all, was in what looked like the mad butcher from a slasher movie Bruce recognized from Jonathan Crane’s office wall.

They were _definitely_ college students. They stumbled around slightly, bumping into stone now and then, and Bruce’s mind whirled as he focused his cowl’s sight into the distance, trying to see where they’d come from.

The only thing there was the dark mausoleum.

Joker tugged at his cape, already inching towards the large tomb. Bruce turned off the enhancement feature as he refocused on him. “Come on, Bats, we’re clearly missing the fun,” he grinned.

Bruce followed obediently, scowling slightly as their pace increased. He didn’t like where this was going.

Joker continued to hum the tune as if he hadn’t missed a beat, putting Bruce’s nerves slightly more on edge as they quickly neared the crypt. He felt like every step they took towards the place was making his heart thud louder.

And louder…

And _louder…_

“Do you hear that?” Joker asked, stopping a few yards away from the mausoleum’s doorway.

“…I _feel_ that,” Bruce grumbled, realizing it wasn’t his heart thudding, but the vibrations from a stereo system’s heavy bass, pumping somewhere underground.

“Well, that handy-dandy book _did_ mention a trapdoor that led down to the Owl’s underground lair,” Joker said, sounding reassured, “Guess it’s a well-known secret now.”

Bruce gave a frustrated sigh, mentally cursing the author of the Owl’s tell-all book. It figured that innocent people would be put in the way at a time like this. “We have to try and get as many people out as possible.”

“If he’s even _down_ there,” Joker muttered. “There are several sub-chambers down there, remember? If those kids were in any real danger, they wouldn’t just be walking out of here. They’d be dead.”

“There might be traps set up for later,” Bruce countered, thinking of the canisters Crane had hidden in the diner as the mausoleum’s rusty gated door opened with an ear-grinding squeal. A gust of wind blew his cape inside, the edges fluttering against the dirty stone floor. It was almost like the city was hustling him inside.

“Maybe… You’d think that guy would’ve set it off at three in the morning, though, to fit with his little _theme_.”

He had a good point, but Bruce didn’t want to risk anything. “We need to find Crane first.” Bruce turned the little light on his cape back on, somewhat illuminating the crypt. The windows in the front of the tomb barely let in any light at all, but the stone chamber went further, and Bruce could feel the pulsing beat of the bass beneath their feet as he walked in further, Joker at his heels. “If we find him, we get the people here out _before_ we tackle him. I don’t want any accidents.”

The grave was surprisingly deep and dark, and normally there would be the eerie silence to emphasize the lifeless atmosphere…but the music was growing louder, and it pressed into Bruce’s brain that there was thriving, human life crawling beneath a place that should have none.

The Court of Owls was known to be a secretive cult that had once kept its eyes on everyone and its ears to the ground, essentially waiting for the signs of the devil to appear so they could do their so-called holy work and destroy the bringers of such evil forces. The trapdoor that led to one of their hideaways – or _nests,_ as the author of their history had put it – was a piece of stone engraved with a series of names of the cult’s founders, with dates etched next to them that did not match their real death-days, and the stamp of a bird’s talons underneath them all. Hiding in plain sight.

The dust that had gathered on it wasn’t so much _disturbed_ as it was _wiped away,_ as if the secret entrance was of no real bother any more. There was no handle, but there was a deep groove around it that gave the impression you were meant to lift it off the floor. Bruce knelt down, and saw Joker’s kneel down with him – with one average person, it might have been difficult, but with both of them opening the squealing hatch it felt like nothing. There was an old iron handle on the inside of the door, making it easy to close after them, if they wanted. Bruce did not want that – it was a safety hazard in everyone’s case.

Electronic music hit their ears, the beat still pounding steadily away, but it sounded distant, like Bruce was leaning on the outside of a club. There was a dim orange light down past the base of the stone steps, like someone had dropped a glow-stick.

“Flying mammals first,” Joker teased, smiling over at him.

Bruce silently started to descend the short steps with heavy footfalls. It felt like he was walking into a castle’s cellar rather than a secret chamber beneath a graveyard.

The orange light was not a glow-stick, but a jack-o-lantern with _several_ glow-sticks stuck in the back of its mouth. Bruce inhaled, smelling fresh pumpkin mixing with the damp, dusty atmosphere.

There were several more carved pumpkins, with various ghoulish faces, leading the way down the short hall as if the person who came down wouldn’t be able to just follow the music. Thankfully, there were no real candles in any of them, but LED lights in different colors nestling in their mouths. At least that crossed ‘potential fire hazard’ off of Bruce’s list of dangers that could go horribly wrong.

The hall split, and Bruce could hear music on one end. John had told him on the drive over that the chambers beneath the graveyard and library split into four sections, not counting the entrance hall, as a mimic of the four original owls with their leader at the head of the table. There were two square chambers on each side of the hallway.

Bruce cast a glance over at Joker. They shouldn’t completely split up – they should go down one end together and look into the sections separately.

But then again… Dr. Crane could be hiding in plain sight. If he was wearing that ‘scarecrow’ mask, he’d blend in with the crowd of costumed party-goers. Neither of them knew what the rooms actually looked like – they could break off into alcoves that were easy to hide in, or they could have secret entrances to other parts of the chamber.

“Joker.”

(Why did he always light up when Bruce said his other name?) “Yeah?”

“We’ll go see if Dr. Crane’s hiding in the crowd. If he’s not, we’re checking all the rooms together.”

“Sounds like a plan, Batman,” Joker grinned darkly, rolling his shoulders and adjusting something in his sleeves.

“Don’t assault him unless you’re _positive_ it’s him,” Bruce advised in a darker tone, thinking of the bowie knife Joker had stolen from Poison Ivy’s hideout, “I don’t want _any_ innocent people hurt.”

“I know you don’t,” Joker said simply, still smiling at him, the glow from the pumpkin’s green lights making his penetrating gaze seem even more unearthly. “It took me a long time to figure out _why,_ but I _get it.”_ He put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, pushing down so the man beneath would feel its weight properly. He leaned in close, like he was sharing a secret, or perhaps going to kiss him, staring at the lenses in Batman’s cowl like he could see right through them. “So you don’t have to worry, Bruce.”

The hushed whisper of his name practically drowned out the bass pounding through the walls.

If their relationship had been different, Bruce might have fruitlessly told him not to use his name outside, or perhaps doubted him, or just given a simple ‘okay’. But this was a moment where silence said more than words:  it was the definite understanding of each other, of the trust between him and John.

He didn’t need to say he believed him; the little stretch of Joker’s dark red lips said he could tell.

The hand on his shoulder slid away, brushing against the armor over his upper arm before retreating entirely.

“Let’s go,” Bruce said finally, the modified voice sounding softer than usual.

The music hadn’t stopped for a moment, despite some new wavering sounds being mixed in with the repetitive beat. The hallway split into another short hall, with one square dark room closed off by a door with long electric chords sliding underneath and trailing towards the wide open room across from it.

Bruce was almost impressed with how much equipment someone had managed to sneak down into the underground. The open room was large, like the enormous dining room at the manor, with several booming speakers in the corners and a DJ in the front, all lit by pulsing, color-changing lights. (Green, blue, red, yellow, then back to green in a steady pattern.)

The room was almost full. People were dancing in the middle and near the front, leaving plastic cups on every surface they could find – the floor, folding chairs, one of the long tables manned by unofficial bartenders – and the vast majority of them seemed to be somewhere their 20’s and all of whom were wearing _some_ kind of costume.

Joker was already casually sweeping the floor, soon blending in with the crowd of people drinking, laughing, and making out on the sidelines. Bruce started on the other side, scanning the room with focused intensity.

He had never thought he’d be grateful for John’s earlier message regarding knock-off costumes of him. He spotted at least two in the crowd as he meandered over the somewhat sticky floor, and the surprise of such a sight was dulled more than it could’ve been. He didn’t have the time to think about what people might have been thinking buying such things, let alone wearing them.

 _“Woooow_ , nice costuuume!” a young woman in a leopard unitard and diamond-shaped mask shouted above the music, sliding into his side from a crowd of fairly drunk college kids. (Upon closer inspection, she had what looked like blood in her hair. It was likely fake; several people in the crowd behind her had similar stains on their heads and shoulders, and there was no real wound on any of them.)

Her praise was genuine. Bruce was a lot of things, but he wasn’t one to turn down a compliment, and he figured it would make him blend in to play along. “Thanks,” he grunted, the cowl’s voice changer making it sound a lot scarier than he meant it.

She seemed shocked, but her momentary fright immediately gave way to utter enjoyment. “Oh my God, that’s _amazing!_ Annniiieee!” She shouted, waving down another girl, “You HAVE to see this guy, you’ll love him!”

Bruce was going to turn away before her friend could interfere with his investigation further, but he stopped when the aforementioned girl strolled forward from another part of the crowd.

_“Tiffany?”_

Tiffany Fox’s eyes almost popped out of her face, and Bruce saw the cup in her hand threaten to spill over her modified pleather pants. He could practically see her fight-or-flight instincts kicking in – with good reason, too. It was _definitely_ a work-day tomorrow.

After a painfully silent moment, with pounding music and colors flashing over them, Tiffany gave an awkward grin. “Uh, hey, _Bruiser!_ Good to see you!

“What, you two _know_ each other?!” The leopard-girl shouted joyfully.

Tiffany grabbed onto Bruce’s arm with her free hand and gestured with the cup in her other, the glowing plastic bracelets on her hand jiggling. “Let’s go talk outside!” She yelled, before turning to the leopard-girl. “I’ll be right back, Barbara! Watch my drink!” She instructed, thrusting the half-empty cup into her friend’s free hand.

“You better explain yourself later!” Barbara shouted back with a teasing grin. “You can’t keep a hunk a secret forever!”

Tiffany was practically speed-walking out of there with Bruce in tow, and they ended up at the other end of the hall by the closed door. It was quieter out there, with the lack of people and music and shifting lights. Tiffany looked thoroughly embarrassed, even as she yanked the door open so they could have some real privacy. Bruce thought about whether or not leaving Joker out on the floor by himself was a good idea, but he supposed a few minutes wouldn’t hurt.

Thankfully no one else was in there. Bruce heard the whir of a portable generator by the door. It looked to be empty; whatever the room’s purpose had been before, it had been cleaned out for some time.

Bruce narrowed his eyes down at her as the door shut, and turned on his cape’s light. “What are you doing here?” He asked, his paternal instincts kicking in. She’d clearly been there a while – the temporary pink streaks in her hair were faded, some of the hair-paint having dripped spots onto the fake pilot goggles around her neck. “You have _work_ tomorrow.”

“I could ask _you_ the same thing, _Bruce.”_ Tiffany folded her arms across her chest. The nonfunctional buckles of her torn neon-pink shirt jangled. _“I_ just wanted a night off. I didn’t think you were the raving kind,” she added sarcastically.

A night off? Smack-dab in the middle of an investigation, after an attack on the city? In the middle of the _week?_ What on Earth was she _thinking?_

He tried to keep calm, taking a deep, slow breath.

She was thinking like all young adults – and kids – did. Hell, what _everyone_ did. Something disastrous happened that was completely out of their control, so they distracted themselves. They threw themselves into something that would temporarily take away their pain, remind them of how _alive_ they were. They would do the same when they had control again, too, with a lot more vigor. Dancing drunkenly to have fun and forget their problems was a ritual as old as society itself.

Bruce knew actively being angry with her would only rile her up, but even when he was being honest he couldn’t keep the accusing edge out of his voice. “I’m here trying to track down Dr. Crane. He’s supposedly using part of this chamber as his hideout.”

Tiffany raised an eyebrow, some of her defiance shifting into fear. “Here? Really?” She turned more thoughtful, her shoulders slacking. “I suppose he could hide on the other side, in the smaller rooms… I mean, it’s not like this place is much of a secret on campus…”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s parties here every year – one today and one on Halloween. It’s been kind of a thing for a while.”

Bruce didn’t remember hearing about that. Maybe he hadn’t been in the right circle of friends at the time… “Why today?”

“I never asked.” Tiffany shrugged. “Barbara told me about it while we were still in school together. She still has some friends at G.U., so she invited me along with them. I thought…” Tiffany hugged herself a little, looking down at the floor. “I thought it would be okay, since you were out, and I had kind of depleted my area of expertise…”

Bruce supposed she _had_ been working a lot lately. When she wasn’t working as a developer at Wayne Enterprises, she was working as ‘Oracle’, the always-accurate anonymous informant to the GCPD, rarely asking Bruce for advice since she started six months ago.

He wasn’t going to say he was disappointed in her. He was, and he was angry, but he also understood. Her reasons for being there didn’t matter when there were bigger stakes at hand. “Tiffany, I need to know – have you seen anything unusual tonight? Have you seen anyone walking around in a scarecrow costume?”

The young woman thought carefully. “Well…no, I haven’t. The only thing that’s different from last year is the blood-balloons they launched from the front about ten minutes ago, when this song started up. It’s all just red corn syrup, though. I, uh…kinda checked,” she added sheepishly, holding up the palm of a fingerless glove. It had a glowing light in the palm, much like his own gear. “I’ve been working on getting the bio-scanner to work remotely with my phone.”

That definitely explained the fake blood on some people’s heads. “You’ve been working on a wireless version for yourself?”

“Well, me, and…the GCPD. You’re coming back is…a surprise,” she admitted, glowering at him anew. “You told me you’d never be Batman again, and the next thing I know you’re telling Iman otherwise. I really should have seen it coming, when you asked me to look up information on Dr. Crane for you in the first place, but… I didn’t think it’d be because of _him.”_

“Crane’s _dangerous,_ Tiffany, I’m the _only_ one who knew what he was doing before tonight,” Bruce growled out, finding his temper rise along with hers. “I’m not just-”

“I wasn’t talking about _him!_ _”_ Tiffany exclaimed, her hands going to her hips. “I meant John Doe!”

It was almost like his heart had seized for a second.

“You took him out of Arkham, you’re letting him _stay_ with you, and you brought him in the _field_ with you, for heaven’s sake! I don’t know what you see in him, but… Are you going to tell me he’s not at least _partially_ responsible for you going back to being Batman?”

The beat thumping away under their feet stopped, but the whir of the generator by their feet kept going. Bruce heard what sounded like a complaining crowd.

Muffled, uneven sounds drifted through the door, as if someone was talking into a microphone.

Bruce opened the door, and found the lights in the converted dance hall had almost all been turned off, with one yellow one pointing near the DJ’s turntable.

An unfamiliar person in a pumpkin mask stood there, a microphone in hand, addressing the crowd. A long black cape with a high collar covered their body like a shroud, the arm poking through the material just as sleek as the rest of the material, despite being a dark orange, and the gloves looked like brown pleather. There was no way to see hair or skin color, as the clothes and mask covered everything in sight.

“I know we’re all here tonight to get away from Gotham,” a feminine voice echoed across the hallway. “This city – the foul depths of it keeps trying to crush us beneath its boot, and I know you’re all trying to forget what happened today. I know some of you are hoping for a savior.”

“Yeah, Batman!” A voice called up defiantly, and the crowd gave a whoop of victory.

Bruce turned to Tiffany. “It’s Jackie Lant. She’s been trying to kill Crane.”

“Batman is _DEAD,”_ the masked Jackie Lant shot back, gripping the microphone tight. “He has been for _six months._ I _love_ Batman, like so many of you, but where else is he? And if he’s not dead, he might as fucking _well_ be. Six months without him, and what have we got to _show_ for it? Fucking criminals coming out of the woodwork, who think they RUN this town!” She growled.

The crowd booed in response. Bruce was already making his way towards the darkened floor, Tiffany following. (Where was John?)

“They terrorize our fucking restaurants, our cheap-ass apartments, and our shitty streets! But _we’re still here!_ Batman is dead, but _we’re_ not!”

There were cries of agreement rising up.

“The guy who attacked the diner this afternoon – I’ve been tracking him all night, because the police can’t do _jack,_ and he’s sitting safely behind a locked door in this _very fucking place!”_

 _Locked door?_ Bruce’s mind raced as he scanned the crowd, looking for any hint of Joker in the darkness. There was something unusual – a gap in the back wall, barely visible if it weren’t for the visual enhancement in Bruce’s cowl. (Had he been taken in there? Did Jackie have people with her to help? Bruce just hoped John hadn’t been hurt.)

“Yeah right!” Someone else shouted.

Jackie continued, sounding more and more riled up. “He decided to make a _mockery_ of us, sleeping next to where we de-stress, and we have a chance to get back at him! We _outnumber_ him! We can show that stupid terrorist fuck who he’s _messing_ with _\- Gothamites!”_

The glint of the revolver being held up in the yellow stage light shot cold into Bruce’s heart as more of the crowd cheered.

“We can avenge this city OURSELVES! Who’s with me?!”

People were shouting, and soon a small crowd had gathered around Jackie. Bruce struggled to make his way through the tight-knit throng of people, trying desperately to reach the masked woman, unable to be heard over the roar of people chanting the label they had made for themselves.

 _‘Goth-am-ites! Goth-am-ites!’_ kept ringing in his ears as a small crowd rallied Jackie Lant out into the hall, rushing towards the other end of the chamber with a lust for blood pumping into the air, brandishing nothing but their fists.

Tiffany was making her way back over to him, panicked but determined. Bruce managed to push more at the people crowding around him.

“Go after them!” She cried, whipping her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll hack the DJ’s sound system to blast out a siren at high volume! That should clear the rest of them!”

Bruce, grateful that he would have the extra time, moved as quickly as he could, elbowing the crowd around him until they got out of the way. The Batsuit’s boots stomped on the stone floor, and he tried his best to focus on the purpose at hand, despite the nagging question in the back of his head of Joker’s whereabouts, and the small guilty thought of not telling Tiffany that he was with them.

He got into the hallway, and heard grunts at the far end, and something rattling, like the crowd was trying to ram the door down. Bruce ran, not sure exactly what he could do to get them to stop without resorting to violence, and heard wood clatter against stone.

“I don’t understand!” Jackie’s panicked, angry voice carried in the hallway, as he passed by the colorful pumpkins, “He’s supposed to be in here! _Where the fuck is he?!”_

“You lied to us!” a man’s voice yelled as Bruce delved into the dark corridor.

“You _bitch,_ was this some kind of _prank?!”_ shouted another.

It sounded like someone had been hit. The wet smack of fists against skin echoed in the silent hallway.

“THIS ISN’T A _PRANK!”_ Jackie screamed.

Another loud smacking noise, and then another, and he heard Jackie swearing loudly among a sudden clamor of fighting shouts.

Bruce finally reached the busted door – a flashlight had been dropped on the floor, skewing the light, shining partially onto Jackie’s fallen pistol.

The masked woman was trying to fight off several people, half of whom were throwing drunken punches and kicks. Bruce reached for his belt, intending on trying to grab Jackie out with his grappling gun and throwing a smoke bomb for the rest, but just as he undid one of the smoke bomb’s clasps, something landed in the middle of the floor.

Before Bruce could react, the cluster of sticky bombs expanded outward in a flash, sticking to people and objects alike, and there was the definitive sound of electric buzzing as everyone – including Bruce – got stunned.

The Batsuit was at least equipped with some electrical resistance, so the shock was fairly minimal.

The creaking sound of rusty iron hinges filled the room, and Joker stepped out of a secret stone door from the far left of the wall, his white face glaringly obvious even in the dark.

“Ganging up on a girl isn’t a very nice thing to do, guys,” Joker chided in a mocking tone. “Good thing I’ve got bigger fish than you to fry.”

It seemed the electric charges weren’t as severe as they were before – either from an incomplete recharge or some modification – because several of the group that had been hitting Jackie were stirring and attempting to retreat. Jackie Lant herself was scooting backward on the floor, trying to rest against the nearest surface, clutching her side with her left hand. Bruce stepped inside the room, taking note of how it looked rather like an old bedroom and a workroom smashed together. Everything piece of furniture inside was incredibly old, and there was the distinct smell of mold cleaner.

“Now run along, kids – the _adults_ need to talk,” Joker instructed, his tone going between lighthearted ribbing and threatening as he picked up the heavy flashlight from the floor.

Two of the group were already on their feet and backing away quickly, throwing Batman a questioning look. One was slowly standing, watching Joker with weary, bloodshot eyes, and the last two were trying to carry a third unconscious one out.

“How,” Jackie asked in a hoarse voice, “did you get out of Arkham?” She seemed to be in pain; she was still clutching her side, and she wasn’t making any attempts to stand.

The mere mention of the asylum seemed to be enough for the straggling member of the group – they bolted as fast as their wobbly legs could carry them, past Bruce and out the door.

“I _broke_ out,” Joker said simply, gently pushing the spent electric charges aside with his foot as he strolled closer to Jackie. “Good thing, too. I’ve been meaning to have a little _talk_ with you… As long as Batman’s okay with investigating solo,” he added, turning towards the billionaire with a wide, knowing smile.

Jackie seemed to freeze.

“Just put the flashlight down,” Bruce instructed, feeling like it was a good idea to put Jackie on edge, “I need to see the whole room better.”

“Good point!” Joker took a seat on the floor across from Jackie, standing the flashlight upright by his knee so the bright beam hit the ceiling. (Wait…was he wearing a _purple_ trench coat, now?) “There. Now that we’re on even ground, we can have our little therapy session properly.”

The jack-o-lantern face of the mask just seemed to stare at him. “Is he…” she trailed off, tilting her head up to look at Bruce, who was switching on his cape’s clipped-on light. “Is he _real?”_

“As real as that dancing vampire cosplayer who traded coats with me. He _really_ liked the bullet holes in it,” Joker explained, putting his elbows on his knees, “and I really like the look of this one! It’s got such deep pockets! And purple’s my go-to color, as you might recall.”

Bruce started to search the surfaces of the tables, looking for anything that could point to Crane either living there before or showing where he would go next.

“Of course, I don’t know if you were _really_ paying attention to my sessions or not. You seemed a million miles away whenever I saw you there.”

Bruce examined the papers on the nearby table. A street map of Gotham, with streets circled in places. Another map, this time of the water filtration plant, looking like it had been a carbon copy of the official blueprint, with little ‘x’s written here and there.

Jackie seemed to be looking down into her lap. “If you’re going to kill me,” she said, “just do it. I don’t have anything to live for.”

Joker’s laugh was loud, piercing the air and swallowing any other sound there might have been. _“Ha ha ha!_ Oh, Jackie, you _card!”_ He laughed a little more, wiping carefully at the corner of his eye with the tip of his gloved finger. “Ahh, _well…_ I’ll tell you what, kiddo. You just answer me a couple of questions, and then we’ll see, hm?”

Bruce almost turned around to glare at him. That was all said way too casually, like he was seriously considering it a deal.

He considered putting a stop to it right then. Killing Jackie would only set John back further on his path to recovery.

But John had… He’d said he _understood._ John _knew_ he didn’t want to go backwards.

John knew _him,_ and knew Bruce would stop him if he even _tried_ to kill someone. It was a bluff.

Bruce decided to stay put, and scan the papers scattered on the table for fingerprints.

“Now, Jackie, first of all – how did you keep finding Crane before us? I know you two were kinda palsy-walsy, but I’d bet he didn’t just tell you outright.”

“…hold on,” Jackie rasped before she took off her rubber mask, freeing her unruly red curls and revealing her newly-bruised sweating face. She looked exhausted. She put the mask next to her legs, still holding her hip like she was pressing down on a wound, despite the lack of blood. “You said _finding._ As in, _plural.”_

Joker grinned at her, the light not doing anything to soften the sharp toothy smile. “We saw you get shot in Toxic Acres. Batman was itching to go find you before Crane went back to finish the job.”

Bruce knew Jackie was looking over at him. He could feel the eyes on the back of his head as his gauntlet struggled to connect with the Batcomputer. (Several prints – some looked to be women’s, likely from Poison Ivy’s gang. He had to be sure about the rest. Solid evidence was important to any case.)

“You did, huh…” Jackie muttered thoughtfully. “I searched his little townhouse after I left the asylum. He doesn’t look like it, but he can book it down the stairs when he wants – he managed to speed off before I could even get to my car in the asylum parking lot,” she said with a small snort. “I actually went home to get my revolver first, and by the time I got to his place he was gone. I found a piece of paper with his friend’s initials under an owl he keeps on the fridge – he had some private joke about it _holding secrets_ or something – and I remembered that one of his expense reports for his ingredients listed ‘Pamela Isely, T.A.’. She certainly isn’t a teacher’s aide,” she smirked. “I figured it had to stand for Toxic Acres - the P.O. box the address in the report listed was nearest there. That was one of the things I still had a picture of on my phone.”

The gauntlet’s search function came back positive for fingerprints of Jonathan Crane and his known hired lackeys, though there were a couple of unknowns. Bruce kept searching.

“I didn’t know when he’d show up, or if I’d missed him, but I knew he’d be looking for more ingredients for his toxin, so I just waited for him up there. He told me a month ago his friend had given him some flowers for his project, and that he was having trouble keeping them alive – I could put two and two together pretty easy.”

There was a hurricane lantern sitting on the floor, so Bruce picked it up and examined it – it wasn’t tampered with. He decided to switch it on, filling the room with more light.

“I came _here_ because I knew he would stay in a cemetery,” Jackie said with a huff, leaning her head back against the wall. “It’s right up his alley. I searched a few before I remembered this mausoleum… He liked the Court of Owls mythos a lot. I figured he had to be hiding down here.”

Joker laughed in amusement. “Oh, that’s _rich!”_

Jackie chuckled to herself. “Yeah… Hours of time wasted, and I should’ve looked here first…”

“No, not _that,”_ Joker interrupted, still entertained, “We had the same thought! That he’d _absolutely_ be the type to stay in a creepy place like this! Ha ha ha! Batman – _Batman_ was the one to connect it with the _Court of Owls_ junk Crane had been looking into!”

A loud, shrill siren pierced the air, flowing through the secret passage. Bruce winced as Joker and Jackie Lant covered their ears. Bruce could feel slight vibrations under his feet and heard the faint sounds of screeching people in the distance, which meant Tiffany’s method of moving the crowd away from the crypt was working.

Bruce shut the open part of the wall, cutting off some of the noise.

“Oh, _God,_ what the _fuck_ was that?” Jackie asked, rubbing her ears as Bruce moved to close the broken door. (It didn’t matter if it wouldn’t close all the way, it was just a miracle it wasn’t shattered completely. All he wanted was to block off more of the noise.)

 _“Ugh,_ I don’t know, but I’m going to guess it was our local bat’s way of getting the party out,” Joker teased. _“Anywhooo,_ on to round two.” His voice shifted from lightweight to darkly playful. “Why did you drag Bruce Wayne into your little scheme?”

Bruce didn’t have to turn around to know what expression Joker had. He was likely staring holes into her. Bruce decided to examine the propane tank in the corner of the room.

“…It just kind of happened,” Jackie admitted slowly. “I knew Crane was experimenting on you, and I knew Bruce visited you a lot – I figured he’d notice, and try to get Crane kicked out. So I kind of organized everything around that… He was already trying to separate you so you wouldn’t ‘be influenced by any outside factors’, as he’d say, so I kinda…amped it up a little,” she added in a low tone.

Bruce bristled. So she _was_ partially responsible for keeping them separated. (No, he had to keep focused. He couldn’t risk distraction; it would only implicate him anyway.)

The tank was empty, but it had Crane’s fingerprints all over it. He thought back to the chemistry tools the doctor had kept in the basement, and the various plans he’d had on his hard drive, and wondered just how long it had taken him to fill all the empty tanks he’d accumulated with the fear gas at home. He decided to scan it for any traces of the toxin, in case it held it at one point.

“I knew I had to pin Crane’s death on someone, and he was just…convenient. Everyone knows he sinks money into Arkham because you two are pals; it’s not like it’d be a surprise if he tried to off a doctor for messing with you.”

“That’s not true.”

Bruce felt like his ears were on fire. John sounded strangely…tender, despite the anger laced in his voice.

“Bruce was donating to Arkham _long_ before we became friends,” he continued, “He _cares_ about people. He… He would never kill _anyone.”_ Bruce cast a quick glance over his shoulder at them. Jackie was staring, seeming to struggle to decide if he was right or not, and John was looking down at his hands. “Guy’s got a heart that bleeds so much I’m surprised he can still walk around,” he joked lightly, the corner of his mouth turning up just a little as he tilted his head back up. “For some reason, he just can’t stop caring about us… About _Gotham._ Even though he could’ve just gotten out years ago and never looked back.”

The scan of the tank came back positive. Fear Toxin residue sat on the end of the short nozzle; he must have used the larger tank to fill up some smaller ones.

Jackie Lant laughed, low and genuine, her voice still somewhat grated. “Oh… That’s true, isn’t it? Ha ha… You know… When I told him what was happening, he didn’t even _question_ me. He just… _volunteered_ to help me, right then and there.” She laughed a little more, growing sadder with ever sound. “I kinda figured he might just buy his way out of trouble later,” the young doctor sniffed. “I guess I owe him an apology…”

“And _me,”_ Joker emphasized, a threat underneath it. “You were _VERY_ rude to me.”

Bruce scanned the bed, trying to refocus back on the task at hand. It was completely clean of any DNA traces; Bruce wasn’t surprised about that, given that it was moldy and rotting. There was a sleeping bag, though, sitting on the floor underneath…

“…oh, you mean back in the office,” Jackie replied thoughtfully. “I’m really not really cut out for this job, you know… Arkham was the only place that would hire me right out of school. I thought I could handle it, use it as a stepping stone to somewhere else, but… I _hate_ that place,” she said dejectedly, “I… I tried to understand. Tried to _connect_ with all of you, but… I _can’t._ I can connect with strangers, but I can’t emphasize with people like you. Not how I’m _supposed_ to.”

Bruce cast another look at them. Jackie looked genuinely mournful.

“I’m sorry, John. I know what I said to you was… ‘Detrimental to your recovery process,’ as a real doctor would say.”

Joker chuckled, sounding somewhat cruel. “That’s right out of a textbook! You really _aren’t_ made for psychiatry, are you?” He decided to rest his chin in his hand, a dark, knowing smile on his face.

Jackie actually smiled back halfway. “No, I’m really not,” she said, snorting at the word ‘no’.

It was…quiet. There was no more blaring siren from the other side of the chamber, or any more footsteps outside. Bruce could probably hear a pin drop, if it weren’t for the cowl covering his ears.

Bruce unzipped the sleeping bag. Nothing but clothes and supplies. He was planning on coming back. That meant he was going after another part of the city… Could he really be going after the water filtration plant so soon? It looked so like the digital one from his hard drive… Bruce had to dig, find out what was missing from this place.

There were a couple of things stuck onto the worn brick. Blueprints for Wayne Enterprise, the GCPD, and another street map… What was _missing…?_

“This has been quite an enlightening session, Jackie. But I’m afraid I have _one_ more question… If you really admire Batman, why are you acting like a budding member of his rogue gallery?”

Bruce was curious, but tried to focus on his thoughts. (The Gotham Blimp Corp., Black Gate prison, and the Gotham Sky Rails. He might have just thrown those ideas out… Wayne Enterprises was still Bruce’s best bet, as that would be the easiest target with the most amount of people. He _could_ have kept duplicate maps.)

“I thought he was dead… I mean, not a single sighting around town in _six months,_ and now he’s standing in the same room… It doesn’t feel real.”

Bruce examined the street map closer. Little dots were added in places. Bruce tried connecting them into lines with his visor’s visual generator.

“He’s the only good thing about Gotham left, and I… I thought if everything was going to Hell anyway, why not run when the opportunity came? And after I found out what Crane was doing, I figured his work is easy enough to manipulate into something less... _disturbing.”_ Jackie paused, and when she resumed her voice was solemn and grave. “And if Batman’s dead, so is Gotham. Morals don’t mean anything when the mouth of Hell is trying to swallow you.”

 _“Pffft,_ ha ha ha! Now _that’s_ dark!”

Bruce swallowed his nerves. The lines were too big. Maybe if he combined them with the marks on the map on the table…?

Now when Bruce connected the dots, they made what looked like a map of the Gotham Sky Rail Lines, with certain stations being marked with ‘x’s. He pulled up the Batcomputer, thinking back to the street maps that had the busiest commute times. Perhaps it was the same way with the trains…

“You know what’s funny?” Joker asked, sounding somewhat amused, “You and I have the _strangest_ thing in common – we’re both just _itching_ to get out of our respective cages. Me in Arkham, you in Gotham… We both want out. We’re both bitter about why we’re _stuck there_ in the first place. But while I _know_ my place has a reinforced wall, you’re so busy trying to chew the padlock you don’t even realize you could just bend the bars!”

Bruce heard the soft clack-clack-clack of the revolver’s bullet chamber spinning, and his heart went cold. (He should’ve kicked it across the room, or picked it up. Why did he just leave it there? Why did he not think of it at all?)

“Ah, well, _c'est_ _la vie_ … No last words?”

Bruce turned around, greeted by the sight of the muzzle of the revolver pointing in the middle of Jackie’s face, and a wild glint in John’s eye as he pulled back the hammer. Jackie said nothing, choosing only to stare down the barrel at him, her wide eyes flicking between his.

It felt like time slowed down.

He should do something. He should _stop_ him.

Damn it, John should _know_ better…!

(He _did,_ didn’t he? He knew his aversion to guns. It was one of the subjects they’d broached during Bruce’s visits.)

No…

No, John said he’d understood. He meant it.

Bruce _trusted_ him, damn it, come Hell or high water.

So he stayed put, despite his feet wanting to rush forward. Despite everything else in him – the Bat, the young boy of eight, the sensible parts of his brain – telling him to snatch that gun out of John’s gloved hand.

Bruce still flinched when the trigger was pulled, the little click of the hammer falling seeming to echo as loud as a shot, but there was nothing else.

There was no explosive sound, no flashback to Crime Alley…no _bullet._

There was only Jackie, who had scrunched backwards into the wall, re-opening her eyes with a bewildered expression as Joker laughed, almost sounding manic as he set the revolver down on his lap.

“You should have seen your _face!”_ He taunted amidst cackles, pointing at her with his free hand. “Oh gosh, that was _hilarious!_ You flinched _so hard!”_

Oh, and for all the times for Tiffany Fox to join them… She peered in the broken doorway, her eyes widening at the sight of John on the floor, and her eyes met Bruce, saying everything for her silence:  _“You brought him here, too?”_

Jackie blinked, glancing at the gun in Joker’s lap, and then back at his laughing maw. “You… You took the bullets out?”

“Of _course_ I did! You really thought I’d _shoot_ you?!” Joker laughed, his shoulders shaking with mirth. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice them falling down my sleeves! Guess my slight of hand’s better than I thought!” He slapped one of his knees with a sort of jovial finality. “Ahh… But _see?_ You don’t want to die at all! You’re hip-deep in self destruction, but you’re not welcoming death with open arms. I still can’t believe you _fell_ for that – Batman’s literally _right there,_ and he didn’t take a single step! How did you not notice that?”

Bruce wanted nothing more than to bury his head in his hand. He resisted, and folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes down at him.

He didn’t seem to need to say anything. Joker just kind of smiled back at him, as if he was telling him not to worry. (Bruce couldn’t _help_ but worry; he didn’t want that kind of pressure on him again. The thought of witnessing another murder was enough to make his stress skyrocket.)

“You find anything while we had our little therapy session?” Joker asked, his green eyes glinting.

“Some maps indicate Crane might be targeting certain train stations. We can rule him out at being at the closest ones right now; he’ll have planted his gas bombs and left.”

Jackie stared down at her lap, contemplating something, her eyes darkening.

Tiffany, on the other hand, moved towards him slowly and spoke up. “Let me see it. I know the Sky Rail Line pretty well.”

Joker bristled in his seat, and the smile wiped away from his face.

Bruce could see he was trying to breathe slower. Tiffany was clearly still a sore subject. He told himself to keep them separate for now.

“Wait,” Jackie interrupted, sounding confused, “who are _you?”_

“His assistant,” Tiffany answered, pointing to Bruce with her thumb. “Who are _you?”_

Jackie ignored that, and looked at Batman wearily. “Put the map down on the floor, please. I’ve been taking those trains for almost twenty years - I want to see it, too.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, so he laid the paper print down on the dusty stone floor, mindful of Joker moving to give more space. Bruce had no problem kneeling down, but Tiffany decided to stand, her arms folded.

“Room for one more,” Joker commented in a somewhat teasing tone, patting the floor next to him. When she didn’t move, he pressed. “Come on, it’s not like I can shoot you or anything.”

Jackie gave a snort, the corners of her mouth turning up, but she kept her focus on the map.

Tiffany shifted her weight onto her other foot. “I’ll be fine.”

Joker pouted, but his attention quickly turned to the hologram projection the Batsuit conjured of the train lines.

“The Green Line starts here,” Bruce pointed at the station nearest the cemetery, “and the Red Line starts in the middle of town, intersecting with the Blue Line by the harbor and the Gold Line by the Cauldron. The stations most populated in the morning are here, here, and here,” he gestured to the dots. “If Crane’s planting more canisters like he did at the diner, they’ll definitely be at those stations.”

Jackie Lant narrowed her eyes at the map. “Wait – that doesn’t make sense,” she said, leaning forward with a slight wince. “He wouldn’t plant them at the stations. His Fear Toxin’s potent in low doses, but even in a gaseous form he would need a lot more of it in that kind of open space – especially with the wind.”

Joker raised a brow. “So, he’d put them _inside_ the trains, then, right? You’d only need a canister a car for that.”

“Oh!” Tiffany exclaimed, looking down at the map with a newfound interest. “The _holding_ stations…”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Jackie said with a nod, pointing towards the middle of the Gold Line. “The biggest one is here, in the middle of Gotham, but there’s one at the end of the Red and Blue lines, too. The ‘x’s are the most popular stations, so the trains he’ll pick will target those… And the majority of them are probably going to be sleeping at the Gold Line.”

Bruce had wondered about that, too. She had a good point about the stations not being the real target, but the full trains – it would be a good idea to alert the authorities about the Red and Blue holding stations anyway; he had a feeling the Gold Line would be where Crane was.

Joker narrowed his eyes at her in suspicion. “How do you _know_ that?”

“My Dad’s a train enthusiast,” Jackie answered simply. “It’s why I had to ride all the Lines for years.”

“Good thing, too. Clearly years of exposure have lead up to this one moment,” Joker teased, any negative feelings he had ebbing away.

Bruce stood, a plan coming together. He’d been down in that holding station as a child. It was too big to traverse alone, and if it was the only spot Crane was targeting, that meant he might have already planted bombs on the trains. He could disable them, but finding them would be a challenge. He’d need all the help he could get.

“Oracle,” he started, turning his head towards Tiffany, “I need you to get Iman on comm-link, and then fly a drone down to the Gold Line holding station and see if you can find any of the bombs remotely. It’s after five, and the trains start running at six – Crane probably has several trains filled already, so we need to work as quickly as possible.

“Joker,” he turned, addressing the man watching him carefully on the floor, “I need you to fly a drone, too. We’ll need to find and disable as many bombs as possible, but I’d like to get a head start on it on the way to the station.”

“Wait a minute,” Tiffany interrupted, “I’m coming with you. I _know_ you still have my gear in your trunk.”

Bruce scowled, ready to argue, but he knew he needed the extra hands. “I don’t think all three of us can fit in the Batmobile.”

“I _drove_ here, I can just _meet_ you there. Please… I know I’m still making up for…what I’ve done,” she said vaguely, clearly mindful of Jackie Lant, “but I can’t just sit around when the whole city might be in danger like this.”

Bruce slowly let the air out of his nostrils. “I didn’t say you couldn’t come. I was saying you’d have to drive there.”

“Iman can drive a drone in the meantime. I can take over from there. I don’t mind.”

“…get Iman on the line first. Meet me out front.”

Tiffany nodded, already pulling out her phone and rushing to get somewhere with a better signal.

Joker was standing halfway, dusting off the back of his new purple trench coat before reaching out to Jackie still sitting on the floor. She accepted the help with a slight grunt as she had to bend.

“Ugh, _fuck,_ that’s really sore…”

Bruce gave her a quick once over as she stood by herself, Joker watching her carefully next to her. She didn’t appear to be bleeding from where Crane had shot her. “Did you drive here?”

“Yeah... Kinda had to. My great-uncle stitched me up after I got shot, and he tried to keep me at his place, but… I thought I could find Crane here. End this whole thing.” She sighed through her nostrils. “It really was a stupid idea, but… I didn’t see any other way out.”

“Well, you’ve got _two,_ now,” Joker said, staring at her pointedly with a smirk on his lips. “I’d suggest taking the ‘run away’ option; the other one involves a prison sentence.”

“You’re…letting me go?”

Bruce was honestly surprised John had been the one to suggest it in the first place. “Does your uncle still have mob connections?”

“…yes.”

“Then he should be able to get a new identity for you. Crane can’t implicate you if they can’t find you when he goes to trial. You have a chance to start over.”

Joker looked strangely contemplative at that. Bruce didn’t have time to mull over why – Jackie was pulling him into a hug, muttering a very sincere thank you, and Bruce gently put a hand on her back in response, mindful of the weapons on his belt.

When Jackie Lant pulled away, her face was red, and her eyes were watery, but she hadn’t actually shed any tears. She turned to Joker, her expression unchanging. “John… Can you tell Bruce that I’m sorry?”

Joker appeared comically thoughtful. “Hmm, _maaaybeee._ But only if you’re good,” he teased with a pointed finger in her direction.

Jackie gave a short chortle. “Thank you.”

Bruce put the railway map back on the table, knowing Gordon would need to see things as close to exactly as they found it as possible. “We should leave,” he instructed, “before Crane has a chance to move.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, something quick here – I recently found out what Gotham’s train system is! I kept saying ‘subway’ when it doesn’t _technically_ go underground. I swore I tried to search for it before but came up empty handed! Either way, going back to fix the mentions of it in earlier… Also, I know train stations usually open earlier than 6, but…eh, it’s a work of fiction. We can adjust as need be in little places like that, right?
> 
> Ooh, okay, now I really want to rant a little, because I've just been holding this in: I've always wanted a TT game to have one long moment where the silent option is the best response you can give. In this chapter, Bruce's silence is perfect, because doubting John's honesty or acting all tsundere could have potential consequences later, especially when coupled with earlier choices. And you know that moment in Same Stitch, when Bruce convinces John to hand over the virus to destroy it, and John clasps his hands around Bruce’s and leans in slightly? It's my favorite moment in the entire game; it suddenly grows quiet, completely devoid of every sound but John whispering “I’m trusting you on this.” Without any further explanation you know it’s _more_ than just destroying the virus, it’s Bruce’s whole outlook that John’s trusting, and the fact that for Bruce the world completely _fell away_ when John touched him, and only returns when John lets go, is the indisputable proof that Bruce is in love with him. The only time you focus on someone to that degree is when your either scared out of your mind, or in love with them, and Bruce's expression in that moment can be interpreted as somewhat nervous, but certainly not scared. In the first chapter of this story, when Bruce is hyper-focused on John’s voice-message, it's out of fear, but here, where John reassures him he understands Bruce’s no-death code, the intense focus is out of love.
> 
> And of course, in choice terms of this route, if Bruce had interrupted John's 'therapy' session with Jackie, not only would John be incredibly hurt Bruce didn't trust him, but Jackie would have escaped and become an official villain, known as...Jack-O-Lantern! She'd be dead-set on finishing off Crane, no matter what, impeding Batman and Co. at the Gotham Train station with her revolver, a sawed-off shotgun she stole from her great-uncle, and some flash powder. I considered having her devolve into it, but I wanted her to have a good ending. I hope TT makes more original antagonists in their next Batman season; I loved Lady Arkham, and I'd love to see a Jackie Lant out there.
> 
> On another note, if you haven’t already read it, I have a smutty explicit one-shot related to this fic! I think of it as an ‘interlude’ to the story, really, but you can think of it however you want. ;D I was originally going to wait until we were almost at the end before I posted it, but I decided to post it to tumblr last week in lieu of an AtBoM chapter, so it’s only fair you guys get to read it, too.
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who has kudos’d, commented, bookmarked, and subscribed!!! Your support drives me to do my best and finish this fic with a bang! ;p We’ve got mayyybe two more chapters to go now, plus the epilogue. Will it take two weeks to finish? Three? Who knows! I certainly don’t! I’m gonna try to work on it as much as possible, but I also am itching to write more for my HP fic, too, so please forgive me if this stuff takes a little longer to get out than normal. I’ll do my best to update again as usual next weekend, say late Sunday/Monday. If you’re ever in doubt, check my Ao3 profile or my tumblr for status updates. (I tend to tag them "atbom" or "status update", btw.) See you soon! *Mwah!* ✧˖°ˈ·*ε-(๑˃́ε˂̀๑ )


	16. At the Brink of Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Important Spoiler Tags:** Canon-typical violence, non-con drug use, hallucinations

“Are you _kidding_ me?! It’s practically five to midnight on the doomsday clock, and you’re going off over my flying skills?!”

Bruce would have covered his face with his hand if he hadn’t been gripping the steering wheel so tight while talking to Gordon through the microphone in his cowl. He knew having John and Tiffany work together would be difficult, considering both of them held onto grudges and had tempers, but he didn’t imagine it would be like this. This was more like having two bickering kids, rather than two adults baring teeth at one another.

He supposed he should be grateful, but he was finding it hard to concentrate on talking when he heard three other voices in his ear. If he wasn’t so annoyed, he’d wonder if this was what John felt like while he was off his medicine, constantly hearing voices chatting at him in the background.

Tiffany huffed over the ear-piece. “Those are _my_ drones! You have _no_ idea how long it takes me to repair them! And I’m _driving,_ how the _hell_ am I supposed to watch you fly them?! If you _break_ one-”

Joker was practically steaming at the ears in the passenger seat, a laptop perched on his knees, flying a drone through the cityscape of Old Gotham, heading towards the Green Line’s train depot. Bruce knew it was smaller than the Gold Line, where they were heading now, but it was still important that they scout it out first. Tiffany had made a good point before they left, advising they look into it first as it was closest to Crane’s hideout and more likely to have unmanned gas bombs. “I’m _not_ going to break one! Just because _I_ learned to fly them in a _day-”_

Bruce was very close to just reaching over and slapping his hand over Joker’s mouth to shut him up. Iman Avesta thankfully came to the rescue, sounding appropriately tired:  “Both of you, please, _stop arguing_ – it’s way too early in the morning for this. And Tiffany, concentrate on the road. Our drones are doing fine.”

Bruce saw Joker stick his tongue out, like either of the women on the communicator could see it, but continued to pilot the drone like he was supposed to.

Commissioner Gordon’s voice crackled slightly over the line. _“Batman, I’ve got cars already heading out to the Blue Line’s holding station and the last station at East End, just in case anything’s there. You said the Green Line’s station might have some?”_

“We’re checking that out now,” Bruce answered, his voice distorted into a growl by his cowl’s modifier, “I’m on my way to the Gold Line’s depot.”

Joker tilted his shoulders like he was flying along with the drone. “You know, the more I think about it, the more familiar this sounds,” he commented, his piercing green eyes never leaving the screen nestled in his lap, “Wasn’t there something about a train being tampered with a couple of years ago?”

Bruce couldn’t answer, still being on the phone. “Gordon, we’ll tell you the second we’ve got confirmation on the Green Line’s bomb placements.”

_“Thanks, Batman. I just hope they’re easier to take dispose of than last time.”_

_Click._ Bruce’s phone disconnected, and he was instantly transferred back onto the cave’s communication line.

Joker continued. “Something like, ‘blah blah blah, train dismantled, heavy commute traffic, blah blah Children of Arkham’?”

“Yes,” Bruce answered, “Vicki Vale and the Children of Arkham had tampered with one of the train cars so it would disperse her drugs through the sprinkler system at the busiest station. I stopped them.”

Joker giggled, his voice coming out cold and mocking. “Ohh, old Scarecrow’s not going to like hearing _that._ He always prized his _originality.”_

Now that he thought of it, the Fear Toxin Crane made was a little similar to the drugs Vicki Vale had created as Lady Arkham. It made him wonder if Crane hadn’t been somewhat inspired by her, despite the vastly different ingredients to their formulas.

Iman Avesta’s voice phased in from the ear-piece. “If you guys are right about what he’s planning, it sounds like Crane decided to take the idea further.”

“I’m kinda surprised Lady Arkham didn’t think of using all the cars,” Tiffany chimed in; Bruce heard tires squealing in the background and wondered if she didn’t take a very sharp turn at a red light.

 _“Ehh,_ that was just a terrorist gig,” Joker replied, tilting himself as he flew into the Green Line’s train depot, “Scare the _bourgeoisie_ and all that jazz.”

Bruce practically heard Tiffany’s eyebrow raise in mild derision. “I didn’t think they took public transport.”

Joker didn’t seem to notice dry tone, and continued as if it was a casual conversation. “No, no – middle class are included in that crowd, too; you need to brush up on your French! Hey, Iman, you manage to open the pod bay doors here?”

“Almost… Are the lights inside on?”

“Yup!”

“Good – I’m looking around the Gold Line, I saw a van parked below… Okay, the train doors at Green should be wide open. Batman, how far away are you?”

Bruce calculated his speed and time as quickly as possible. They had sped away from the cemetery while Tiffany was still bundling herself into her car – they had needed all the headway they were going to get. Bruce didn’t like the idea of Tiffany finding Crane first; he was too dangerous, and she still needed some serious combat training. Jackie had watched them leave, leaning against the door of her battered sedan, looking almost dreamily at the nitrous burners. “Two minutes. Three at the most.”

“Right. I’ll start scouting for Crane’s whereabouts. Joker, you find anything yet?”

“Patience is its own reward,” Joker replied with a haughty sort of air to his lower tone. “Though this heat-seeking feature _really_ isn’t helping…”

Bruce took a sharp turn, causing Joker to clutch the laptop as he forcibly leaned in his seat. “The bombs at the diner weren’t professional grade – he had a timer on the one made from the fire extinguisher. He’s either using more basic timers, or clocks; neither will put out much heat.”

“Would’ve been nice to know before I _wasted power,”_ Joker grumbled. “Ooh, _wait,_ I found one!”

Just like that, his tone had shifted from annoyed to genuinely excited. Bruce wondered if that was just how he was, and Bruce had just kind of been ignoring it, or if the fact John hadn’t had a mood stabilizer in his system for nearly three days was enough to make his emotions fluctuate more than normal. It was a part of him that Bruce always liked – the unpredictability, the fascinating range of emotion John could put in a single sentence – but he knew it wasn’t an entirely healthy thing to have. Six months of being back on his medication had made him seem a little more balanced, making it more obvious where he was going to go next… Of course, John had just been around _him_ for a couple of days. The past few hours he’d managed to talk to more people than usual, and two of them were still wary of how he was going to pan out. Maybe Bruce just noticed the fluctuations more because he knew John was being scrutinized, or maybe it was just because of the very stressful situation they were running towards.

“…now what?” Joker asked, a little bit of the thrill leaving his voice. “This thing doesn’t come with any lasers or anything to cut the cables with, does it?”

Tiffany swore under her breath, and Bruce heard a car horn in the distance. “All the drones come with an EMP pulse generator. It should be enough to shut it off.”

“For someone who calls themselves ‘Oracle’, you don’t seem to have God’s all-knowing eye firmly connected to yours,” Joker panned, the corners of his reddened mouth pulling up in Bruce’s peripheral vision, “I’m preeetty sure that an analog alarm clock isn’t going to be hurt by an EMP.”

Tiffany swore again, sounding more frustrated than before, and Bruce took another sharp turn down an alleyway acting as a shortcut. “Iman,” Tiffany grumbled over the microphone, “which drone are you flying?”

There was a clicking noise – Iman was probably looking at the Batcomputer’s remote drone map. “…Fox-2.”

“Does Joker have Fox-3?”

“Yes.”

“Joker, _yours_ has a laser installed on the front, you can control it by pressing Alt.-Function-L and moving the W-A-S-D keys. It’s only good for short bursts. Don’t you _dare_ break it.”

“Really?!” Joker squealed, “Oh, that’s _so cool!_ But…wait, does the other one _not_ have one?”

“No,” Tiffany growled out, suddenly honking as a pair of tires on the other end of the line squealed, _“Hey, watch it, asshole!_ Ugh, if the rest of the bombs are like that, I’m going to have to cut them by _hand.”_

“You can borrow my knife,” Joker added helpfully, “I’ve always got some _aces_ up my sleeve… Say, Bats, is it always the _red_ wire, or the _blue_ wire your supposed to cut?”

Before Bruce could even open his mouth to correct him, Iman’s voice cut in with a sense of complete control. “Joker, let’s switch drones – I’ll defuse it.”

“…oh, alright,” John muttered with a dissatisfied pout, “Take away my fun… Then again, I guess you’re the expert in this kind of situation! But it _is_ the blue wire first, right? One of my newer neighbors in Arkham told me he always switched up the colors so no one could guess what the negative one was.”

“Generally speaking, yes,” Iman replied coolly, “keep your drone on the floor, and we’ll switch at the count of three.”

Bruce tried his best to tune everything out. He had to think, had to go over the memories of the last time he encountered someone in the train station… There were six trains held there at once, four of them he was sure were for the long Golden Line alone. The other two were likely for the Red and Blue tracks, despite the Blue Line having its own holding station at its tail-end. More than likely, Crane would move numerically, which meant he was likely somewhere between stations four and six, depending on how much work they had gotten done in a night.

He tried very, very hard to pay attention to his mental map of the facility, planning for the inevitable and the potential, while Joker insensitively asked Tiffany why she was so concerned over flying machines, and got the firm reply of _‘they were my father’s,’_ which sent him fumbling for an attempt at an apology he didn’t know he had needed to give until now.

He knew that having three other people working around him at once would take some getting used to. He knew it was just technically noise.

But he used to have just one person to worry about, outside of the slim worries regarding his own mortality. Now there were three, two of which were about to be put in mortal danger.

He wasn’t even counting the fourth person he fretted over, currently sleeping on the other side of the world, who was going to wake up to some grim news, regardless of what happened tonight.

“Batman,” Joker called, his voice shaking Bruce from his thoughts, “I’ve found a bomb in the first train car. It looks like it’s glued under the back seat.”

“Then there’s going to be one in the second. Pull out and look in the third docking station. If Crane or his goons aren’t there, look in the fifth. I have a feeling he’s farther along than we want.”

“On it.”

Tiffany’s voice crackled slightly, and Bruce wondered if there was something interfering with the line. (Iman’s hearing aid, perhaps? But no, that should only be on her end…) “What’s the plan here, exactly?”

Bruce took a steady breath. He felt Joker’s eyes on him. “Joker and I are dealing with Crane. You’re going to dismantle the bombs in the rail-cars he’s already tampered with.”

“…okay.”

He heard the disappointment in her voice. Slight, but there, mixed with worry. Over him, or his choice of combat partner, he wasn’t sure. “Iman, have you found any more bombs?”

“Yes. There was another in the front, by the operating cabin. I can dismantle these in about a minute, provided they’re all made the same.”

“Good. Keep disarming them and send a message to Gordon when you’re sure you’ve found them all. His men should be on the way there.”

Joker stopped moving for a moment. “I found them.”

“Where?”

“Train five. Looks like they’re wrapping up… They’ve got a _cart_ with them.”

He was transporting them all at once. “Oracle, how far away are you?”

“Less than a minute!”

“Good – we’re here.”

Bruce jolted the Batmobile to a stop in the Sky Train Depot’s parking lot.

The exterior of the station was as gloomy and utilitarian as before, the vaguely art-deco shapes of the roofs blending in well with the rest of the surrounding city. The orange lights perched near the giant doors did nothing to soothe him. They were candles in the gloom, mere glowsticks in the mouth of the path leading towards destiny.

Beckoning him forward, even as the wind pushed at him, swirling his cape the second he opened the car door.

Even through the layers of tight Kevlar and metal, Bruce could feel it was going to rain again.

Tiffany’s tires screeched to a stop beside the Batmobile, and Bruce heard the laptop John had been carrying click shut.

Bruce saw two unmarked vans in the distance. Crane was still there.

His stomach clenched along with his fist.

“Tiffany,” he said firmly as her car door opened, “Head to dock one and start dismantling the bombs.”

“What do I do if they go off?”

Bruce opened a hatch in the side of the Batmobile. There, amongst the empty spots for his gear, laid the gas mask for his cowl. He had several shots of antitoxin on his person, and several more stored in the car, kept stable.

Joker knew what to expect when hit with the toxin; Bruce had a fairly good idea of it, seeing the effects first-hand.

Tiffany had no idea.

He pushed the gas mask and one of the antitoxin shots into her hands. “These should help. Are the goggles you were wearing earlier real?”

“They’re older than you,” she answered, cocking a smirk, “but they’re waterproof. I don’t cheap out on my costumes.”

“Then wear them. If you start to hallucinate, get out of the area and take the antitoxin. I’ve got more in case we need it.”

Tiffany stuck the orange-hued injector into her own belt and let the black gas mask hang around her neck. “What about you two?”

 _“Oh_ , we’ll be just _fine,”_ Joker answered for him, throwing his hat behind the car seat. “I’ve got more experience with Crane’s little formula than _either_ of you two – I’ll make sure to take the hits in your places.”

The red smile and dark gleam in his green eyes spoke of yards more confidence than Bruce had thought he had. If the situation had been any different, Bruce might have likened it to when John had laid back on the Wayne’s king-size bed, ready and willing to take all of him on.

“Let me know if you need help. The drone can still send out enough sound to distract or deafen them…at least temporarily.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Bruce replied as Tiffany geared up her tablet. “Get going.”

The Batmobile locked itself down, and Bruce whirled away with John keeping right behind him, his grappling gun in hand.

With the trains being held below, it meant Bruce couldn’t waltz in through the lower door. He’d have to take the elevated one. They had a good chance of being heard, but it was the best way.

He turned to Joker as they carefully made their way in, stepping softly over the metal plates.

He looked determined. Poised. _Fiery._

For once, he didn’t meet Bruce’s gaze. He was entirely focused on the group of people below them, working in low light.

Bruce peeked over the railing.

Several people were below.

One of them – Kip, he realized – was lifting one of the gas canister bombs off a small hand cart with the help of a very burly-looking woman with a buzz-cut. The train car next to them was empty, it’s lights on, and another woman with a dark purple ponytail was fixing a smaller-looking canister to the front cabin, where the operator sat. Bruce wasn’t sure what she was using to keep them in place, but she kept reaching for something on the floor. At least he was sure they weren’t being held in place by duct tape.  

“Oracle,” Bruce whispered into the comm-link, “there’s a second bomb placed in the driver’s cabin. One of you send a warning to Gordon.”

“Got it,” Tiffany replied; Iman cursed in Farsi, but Bruce felt that was an agreement.

A fourth person was speaking, but Bruce couldn’t see them. It must have been Ivan, guarding the doorway below.

“You don’t have to hover over shoulders,” Ivan grunted, his Ukrainian accent just as thick as ever, “We have experience with delicate weaponry such as this.”

“I don’t care how many years your old boss made you cart dynamite around,” Dr. Crane’s voice replied, just as calm and stinging as ever, “You’re handling delicate gas canisters that are rigged to release its entire contents in half a minute. One slip-up will cost me more than just what I’m paying you.”

Joker was frowning in disgust, his teeth bared as he gripped the railing, acting like he wanted to leap over it.

Bruce squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t,” he instructed in the quietest voice he could muster, “Wait for my signal.” He ignored the frustrated look he got in return.

Bruce made to softly walk around the catwalk, to get a better vantage point. It would be easy to glide down and start punching, but he’d have to wait until the bombs were placed. He didn’t want to risk the chance of the gas leaking into the air.

For a fraction of a second, it looked like a scarecrow had walked off its pole and wandered into the station.

Dr. Crane stood underneath the doorway railing, clad in a wrinkled flannel shirt, dark jeans, and oddly crisp work-boots, with what looked like a very dirty old square flour sack pulled over his head. There were two holes for his dull eyes – Bruce could see the gleam of glass underneath them reflecting the red light nearby – and a shoddily-stitched frown for a mouth. It was as if he had cut a hole there and decided to fix it back up with wide x-shaped stitches, not knowing how to sew. Dark stains were littered around the mouth and the frayed edges of the base, almost looking as if liquid had seeped out of it like blackened drool or excess drink.

“This is my life’s work on the line,” Crane continued, flat and threatening, his voice lightly muffled by the rag-like mask, “If any of you ruin it in any way, I will ruin _you…_ And it will be far worse than what your pathetic excuse for an imagination tells you… Now do what I tell you and keep a look out for me. You have only yourself to blame for Kip taking your place.”

Ivan crossed his arms and stood still with a _‘hmph’,_ surveying the place and the main doorway for any sign of movement that wasn’t of their little crew.

Dr. Crane moved back to the train car, where the woman at the front had just finished mounting the bomb, and seemed to be inspecting her work, truly hovering over her shoulder as the other two thugs worked on applying some kind of putty to the space underneath the back corner seat, away from the eyes of the doors. The canisters were long and painted beige, matching the interior paint of the train car, and once mounted Bruce could see how no one would notice them.

He thought quickly. The bomb was on the floor – it was still volatile, but if he yanked the woman out of the car with his grappling hook and threw a Batarang at the other, they shouldn’t be able to touch it… He might just have to wait until those two left the car, or else make a distraction to get their attention. The woman at the front was more of a liability, but with such a small amount of gas, it wouldn’t be as dangerous, and Bruce could easily apply the antitoxin. He should be able to hit Crane easily in the confusion -

There was the telltale whirr of a grappling cable, and Bruce knew his plan was practically moot as he turned to see Joker use his own colorful gun as a rope swing, descending with his back at Bruce as he swung out wide, stopping the cable just enough to stretch his legs out and plant his boots into the back of Ivan’s head.

Bruce took a glided leap down onto the floor.

Ivan shouted as Joker landed on his feet, grinning wide and brandishing what looked like several playing cards between his fingers.

Bruce threw a Batarang at Kip, aiming for his exposed shoulder as Tiffany’s voice rang in his ear, telling them she’d finished cutting the wires in the second train car; the woman beside Kip noticed the movement and pulled him out of the way.

“BATMAN!”

The thick-set woman stood, and Bruce saw her reach for the small of her back.

Dr. Crane finally looked up, the light in the train glinting off the glasses behind the holes in his hood.

Ivan cried out, and Bruce stole a glance - several playing cards were stuck into his shoulders and chest. Joker was already sliding out his riot baton, readying himself to swing.

Bruce threw several more Batarangs as he dodged a shot, managing to hit the collar of Ivy’s thug, and made for the head of the car, where Crane had whirled around, scrambling for his pistol.

Bruce dodged another shot from the woman, readying one of his electric bombs – he could easily throw one through the open doorway.

Except he heard the thundering footsteps of Kip.

Kip was roughly the size of a retired quarterback, and he was making his way to slam into Bruce with full force, a knife in hand.

Bruce held up his left arm defensively, the dull spines on his gauntlets jabbing into Kip’s outstretched arm. His heart pounded in his ears as the weight still barreling forward attempted to throw him off balance.

He saw Joker in the distance, jabbing the baton into Ivan’s stomach and sweeping his leg under the grunt’s feet, and felt a surge stem from his gut.

Bruce turned, letting Kip fall forward, and felt the flesh of his throat give into his fist.

Several loud bangs echoed in the station, and Bruce felt something push hard at his side and arm as little metal dings sounded at his feet.

Bruce met the woman’s steely eyes for only a second before they squeezed shut with a loud shout as several playing cards hit her forearm.

The handgun clattered to the floor, and Bruce felt something slice into the back of his calf.

One quick electric bomb to the floor took care of Kip, but Bruce felt the familiar hot ache of something being jabbed into raw muscle – the knife was buried in his calf.

At least he hadn’t needed to waste another Batarang – a barrage of playing cards hit the Ivy goon, and she fell to her knees.

“That’s quite enough,” Dr. Crane called out, his voice ringing from inside the train car.

The other woman tried to reach out for her partner from the front of the train, but she was being restrained in a choke-hold with the muzzle of Crane’s pistol pointed at her temple. “Mary…!”

“Hush, child,” Crane hissed, pressing the gun firmly into her head, “or I squeeze the trigger. I see you managed to escape just _fine,_ Mr. Doe,” he said, seeming to shoot a glare over at Joker, who was advancing towards the car, “And you brought a new patient for me… How thoughtful.”

Bruce clenched his fists. “Let her go, Dr. Crane!”

“Oh, it’s not _Crane_ any more. All of your foes have _titles,_ don’t they, Batman? You can call me _Scarecrow.”_

Joker snorted, his grappling gun clenched in his hand, aiming at Crane’s head. “Ooh, _very_ original. Decided to steal _that_ off a movie poster, too?”

“Better that than a playing card,” Crane shot back coolly, “and I am _quite_ original, thank you. At least I made my own look, rather than deliberately molding myself into someone else’s image. We all know how well _that_ turned out, didn’t we?”

 _“Let her go,”_ Bruce growled, feeling his blood simmering dangerously.

“No. You see, I’m very annoyed right now. I’m going to have to dispose of three more bodies later, plus yours if I’m lucky, on top of having an experiment to oversee.”

Joker blinked, casting a look at the fallen goons on the floor. The woman dotted with sharp cards was still bleeding on the floor, but she was semi-conscious, watching everything unfold, her eyes trained on the woman in Crane’s choke-hold. “But they’re not…”

“I don’t like paying for services not fulfilled; those three obviously weren’t up to snuff. So I’ll tell you what, Batman – you step in here, let me probe that bat-brain for a little bit, and I’ll let her go. I’ll even tell you where the rest of my bombs are.”

“I _know_ where the rest of your bombs are. I’ve seen your plans, Crane.”

 _“Scarecrow_ , please, let’s be formal. And I doubt you know about the ones I left behind in Arkham. All those so-called _innocent_ lives… I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see any of them hurt.”

His blood might have run cold, if it hadn’t been on the edge of boiling.

The woman on the floor spoke up, her voice heavy. “Boss… Please, don’t hurt Dotty…”

Crane didn’t even spare her a glance. “That’s not up to me, my dear. That’s up to Batman.”

Bruce couldn’t risk the lives of Arkham, even if he _could_ find it in himself to risk the life of the gang-banger in Crane’s arm.

Stepping into that train might as well be a death sentence. There was little room to run from a bullet, and with a life on the line, Bruce couldn’t risk much.

He stepped forward, forcing himself to breathe steady. “Fine.” He heard Tiffany and Iman’s voices on the earpieces, but he tuned them out.

“Wait!” Joker cried out.

 _“Not another step, Mr. Doe_. I’m sure Dr. Leland would be very disappointed to find that you were responsible for a hostage’s death.”

Joker looked furious, and his shoulders and fists were as stiff as boards. He was clearly forcing himself not to just run at him. “Just… Leave Bats out of this! I’ll take his place; I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”

“No. I’ve already exhausted what I can from your pathetically clingy brain. I want to have a personal insight into Gotham’s _dark knight.”_

“Joker,” Bruce breathed steadily, meeting his eyes – beautiful, brilliant green, full of anger and desperation – and hoped it wasn’t the last time he’d see them. “It’ll be alright. Move those two out of the way.”

“Helping the people you just beat up? How noble of you,” Dr. Crane jeered.

Acid greens bore through white lenses for a moment. “You know I’ve got your back.”

Bruce nodded.

“Batman, I’m running out of patience. Please enter through the end door there.”

Bruce did as he was told, hating every moment, feeling heavy even without the additional sting of the knife in his leg.

“Very good. Now I’ll just close these so we can have some privacy – my dear, can you reach over and hit that yellow button for me? I’m afraid I can’t move my hands.” Dr. Crane moved backwards, tugging the nervous young woman with him to the control panel, keeping the gun muzzle pressed against her head. The doors closed with a weighty swish and a _thunk_ that made Bruce’s heart feel like it was sinking. He heard John’s voice call out along with the wounded Ivy gang member. Bruce couldn’t hear anything over the comm-link; the thick metal of the train must have been blocking the signal. “That’s better; thank you.”

“Dotty,” Bruce said, trying to meet the gangster’s eyes, “I’m going to get you out of here.”

Dr. Crane lowered his head, and Bruce got the impression he was frowning. “No talking to the hostage, Batman. I know our arrangement isn’t ideal, but just pretend she can’t hear you.”

“What do you want, _Scarecrow?”_

“Just a few answers. I’m a man of science first and foremost. You see, I was studying you for some time, before your mysterious disappearance, and I was quite intrigued by you. A man who tries to stop crime by dressing up as a flying rodent – you either belong in a room next to John Doe, or at the head of the Agency. I’ll decide which.”

Bruce tried to concentrate on his breathing. The smell of old metal and dust lingered in his nostrils. He stared firmly ahead, at the burlap sack of a mask, rather than at the anxious face of the woman with the gun pointed at her temple. He would not linger on the sight of the gun, and would not think back to that alleyway.

“I take it you decided on this… _crusade_ because of a personal loss, due to a crime? What was it that drove you to do this?”

He was not thinking of that alleyway, and the smell of gunpowder. He was not thinking of pearls clattering to the concrete.

“And no lying,” the doctor instructed, “or Dotty here dies.”

He could lie, at the risk of the woman’s death. He could speak outright and risk exposure.

He knew Dr. Crane had suffered loss, too. His parents had also died by accident. Perhaps he could reason through that.

“You also lost something, Doctor. Your parents died almost thirty-four years ago, at a haunted house that caught fire. Was your survival what triggered your fascination with fear?”

 _“I’m_ the one asking questions, Batman,” Dr. Crane pressed, “Though I’m guessing by such a _vague_ reply that you and I suffered a similar tragedy in our formative years. I’m sure it had a factor in both our lives’ paths, but it wasn’t the ultimate driving force behind it, was it? Mine was watching the birds on my aunt’s farm learn to scatter at the sight of me, or else risk an untimely demise. I’m guessing yours had something to do with watching a bat fly over the city…or perhaps flap by your face at just the right moment of reflection.” He was quite wrong; Batman was born in Crime Alley, he just hadn’t chosen his unique look until he rediscovered the cave underneath the house a couple of years later. “Let’s try a different approach – if there are a group of strangers strapped to one track, and a close personal friend one strapped to another, with a train on a split track careening towards them at high speed, who would you divert the train to save?”

Bruce frowned. He always hated that question. “I’m not working _alone,_ Scarecrow. I can easily find a way to save them all.”

“Of course you would,” Crane groaned. “Such a _heroic_ idealism you have… You know, I’m surprised you’re working with Mr. Doe. Did you know what _his_ answer was? He’d save the _single_ person. I can understand saving someone like Dr. Leland, given that she has almost a maternal role in his life, but I found he’d risk the lives of innocent strangers to save the likes of someone like _Bruce Wayne_. Can you imagine, choosing to save the greedy son of a notorious mobster who only visits him out of guilt? He’s really not cut out to be a hero, is he?”

Bruce grit his teeth. He knew Crane was just trying to rile him up. “I’m not here to talk about him. You said you wanted to talk about _me.”_

“Oh, but I can do _both,”_ the doctor emphasized, squinting across the train car at the vigilante. “He’s fixated on two things, you see, and you’re the lesser of them. I want to understand what he sees in you – especially given that he almost killed you. Do you still think of it, sometimes? Sitting in that control room, watching him struggle to get your ridiculously-shaped tool out of his hand? How does it feel, watching someone who looked up to you fall so far from the proverbial tree?”

Bruce didn’t want to answer; he scrambled for something to say that wouldn’t let Crane know he was getting to him. The doctor actually let out a little laugh in response to his brief moment of silence – it was disturbing, to say the least, to hear a man with such little expression let out an actual chortle.

“Oh, your face says a thousand words… I’ve heard a great deal about you – from both my patients and my little colleagues, like Dotty here. They tell me you’re quite the rough customer; intriguingly enough, though, you’ve never reportedly _killed_ anyone. How curious.” He tilted his head, like an animal trying to puzzle out an unusual toy. “Are you afraid of death, Batman? Does the idea of having blood on your gloves keep you awake at night?”

He seemed to be asking, more than taunting. Bruce willed himself not to move. It would take nothing to rush him, but it would cost the young woman her life.

He wasn’t about to prove Crane right by example. He thought back to the doctor’s published papers.

“It’s human nature to fear the inevitability of oblivion. It’s what ultimately drives us as a species,” he quoted, keeping a level tone, “but I strive to _save_ lives, _Scarecrow,_ not destroy them.”

“…you’ve read my work, I see. Plagiarizing me to append your own run-of-the-mill heroism isn’t getting any points from me, Batman. You must know you can’t possibly save everyone… I suppose I should have set the bar lower for you. Still, I’ll keep my bargain – Dotty, child, I need you not to struggle when I pull my hand away, or I’m going to have to shoot you. Nod if you understand.”

Dotty nodded, her frightened eyes flicking to the gun, and then back to Batman. Pleading.

Bruce wasn’t going to move a muscle until she was out of the car. He wouldn’t put it past Crane to shoot her the second she got free.

Bruce cast a look out the train’s side window. Empty. Joker had clearly moved the two thugs out of the way, likely near the door.

Dr. Crane released his hold on the young woman’s upper arm, and reached behind him into the control panel. “On the count of three. One. Two.” He threw the smaller gas canister into the middle of the car, the nozzle spewing green smoke, and suddenly every nerve Bruce had was on edge as he gave a helpless gasp, reaching for his belt automatically. He could get his grappling hook, fire at Crane-

“Don’t even think about it, Batman. I’ve still got a hostage.”

Dotty was clawing at Crane’s arm, struggling to kick away from the fumes filling the car, but Crane’s grip was clearly firm, just as the gun replanted against her head was.

“I did tell you not to struggle, Dotty.”

“You said you’d let her go!” Bruce shouted, his voice sounding more distorted than usual.

“And I am. I just want to see how my little drug affects you. It doesn’t really do anything to me, you see – I don’t _fear_ anything.”

Bruce’s mind was whirling. He was becoming very aware of the lights, the sounds, the weight of the armor on his body…

“Three.”

The train doors opened, and Dotty was all but tossed out. Bruce stumbled forward, his blood pumping as he clutched a Batarang.

He had to hit Crane.

Had to get out of the train - the gas was filling the whole place.

Had to _cut him,_ drive a blade into his chest, _hurt_ him for everything he’d done…

Bruce lurched forward with an electronic whirr.

They were moving.

The train was… _moving._

He heard distant shouts…screams…

He looked out of the window, only to see the bone-white paint peel away like rapidly decaying skin, revealing rust and black metal. There was no reflection in the glass there; only black, and two glowing white lights.

He could hear something new whispering in his ear. Groans. Gasping breaths. A strangled, rattling noise that sent his nerves on edge.

Familiar sounds of injury. Death.

He turned to look at Dr. Crane, and the length of train car between them seemed to expand like a long tunnel. White lights winked at him beneath dark holes of the Scarecrow’s eyes, and something dark and coppery dribbled down its mouth.

“Normally people grow quite aggressive, due to the adrenaline rush they get, but it doesn’t usually work instantly. It takes a bit of seeing their worst fears come out. What are _you_ seeing, Batman?”

Bruce was hardly listening to the eerie voice coming from the scarecrow’s mouth. His eyes darted over the rusting car. The walls were warping, bubbling with something pressing at them like thin membranes.

Figures.

Faces.

A crowd of people pressing towards him from the walls of the train, groaning in pain. He _recognized_ them.

The Children of Arkham. Oswald. Harvey. Alfred. Iman. Edward Nigma. Selina. Frieze. Bane. Harley. John. Tiffany. Jackie.

And scattered among them, those he knew were dead. Vicki Vale. Hill. Falcone. Countless citizens he’d witnessed the death of over the years, the bodies he’d seen.

Lucius Fox reached for him; his burnt face was gaunt and mangled, his glasses askew on his disfigured nose.

Thomas and Martha Wayne, pale and judging, watched from the ceiling, in the middle of the throng.

The windows were dark, but the outside showed a ruined city. Decayed. Corrupted.

He couldn’t save them.

_He could never save them._

“Most people would have throttled me by now. Stabbed me, perhaps. I saw a man come out of the Main Street Diner brandishing a steak knife – he stabbed the first person he saw, thinking they were something from his hallucinations. You truly _don’t_ want to kill anyone, do you?” Scarecrow taunted, tilting his head slightly. “That’s why you and Mr. Doe fell apart, isn’t it? You couldn’t stand the _sight_ of him after that little bloodbath he made in the chemical plant.”

Bruce looked at his own hands. They were sharp and stained red. Dripping.

_His fault._

“He couldn’t either, of course. He’s still attempting to put himself back together. I’m not sure he actually thinks what he did was wrong – I believe it’s more like he’s afraid of disappointing you. Does the thought of him killing again frighten you? Can you still see him there, blood on his mouth and hands, laughing at you, making a mockery of your pathetic beliefs?”

He could see John, reaching for him, black and crimson smeared on his face.

He could feel his blood surge. He was finding it hard to breathe.

The floor was rusting, red, and shining like liquid.

“They _are_ pathetic, you know. There’s nothing wrong with doing everything to get your way. It certainly helped me – I finally fulfilled my goal of getting to work in Arkham. All it took was the lives of two doctors. It wasn’t a big loss for the asylum, anyway – they wrote such _drivel._ They didn’t understand what I wanted to do – what I’m doing now. I’m sure you can understand, now, can’t you? How _I_ want to save people?”

Bruce blinked, stepping forward, his muscles tense. Something dull ached in his leg. He heard a sick splash, like he’d stepped in a puddle of something thicker than water.

_He had to do something._

He couldn’t save the people around him.

But couldn’t he save just one?

Just one person, outside, in those ruins?

“The only way people can truly live is to be set free – and the only way to set them free is by having them overcome their fear. The undercurrent of your worst nightmare is always death… Facing death changes you. You said it yourself:  my parents died when I was young, and it _changed_ me.”

Scarecrow faced the window, looking out into the decaying, rusting ruins of the city, not seeing the corpses that made up the wall.

He couldn’t _save_ him, could he?

He couldn’t _stop_ him, could he?

He was a man. Just that.

Just one person.

He’d tried. Tried to save them all.

But how could he do anything – save them, save the city, clear away the corruption, the _disease,_ the _past_ – when he was just one person?

“I lost them from a simple accident. I blamed myself, as children do – but I realized I didn’t have anything to fear again.”

Gun. Alley. Pearls. Death.

Darkness shrouded them.

Bodies squirmed and moaned, pressing against the flesh of the train.

“I already saw my worst fear come alive, after all. But this formula – my _work_ – it brings you that fear without the true cost. There are bumps, of course. People kill other people in fright. Kill _themselves,_ too. They’re unpredictable like that. It’s quite fascinating, really… But sacrifices must be made for the future. The deaths of some will rebirth more.”

Terror.

_No more death._

Guilt.

_He’d survived. They had not._

Resolve.

_He could try. He could be something. For them. All of them. For Gotham._

Renewal.

**_B a t m a n._ **

He lunged. His fist connected with Scarecrow’s chest.

A snap and a scream.

Scarecrow stumbled back.

Bruce hit the window where the mask had been. The armored knuckles made a spider web.

The control panel door slammed.

Bruce tore it open, the sliding metal screeching against the slotted floor, mixing with the yowls of the walls.

He felt a kick to the stomach.

_Pathetic._

Bruce yanked Scarecrow into the air and threw him into the train car.

The train was slowing, the brakes squealing, the lights flickering back on and off, casting shadows.

“You think you can intimidate me?” Scarecrow coughed, scrambling to stand, reaching for the small canister. Bruce advanced on him, ignoring the blood splashing and sticking to his boots. “I’m not scared of you.”

Bruce heard his voice come out low and guttural. “You _will_ be.”

He swung for his jaw – Scarecrow ducked and slammed the canister into his chest. Bruce stumbled a little, feeling a new dull throb under the black bat symbol. A Batarang found its way in-between his fingers.

The train doors opened, and Scarecrow ran.

Bruce’s feet splashed through blood momentarily before pounding on decaying asphalt. He threw hard, aiming for his back, missing by inches.

“Is that all you’ve-?”

There was the grotesque sound of meat being stabbed, followed by a gurgle.

A Batarang was sticking out of Scarecrow’s shoulder.

“You _scum.”_

Joker stood there, at the top of the station’s cracked concrete steps, his red lips stretched in a wide grimace.

Scarecrow backed away into the space between them, reaching for his wounded shoulder. (It looked familiar.)

“You think you can just _run?”_ Joker continued, the dark green hairs of his head flickering like smoke in the wind as he skulked forward. “From _me_ – from _us?”_

Bruce stomped towards the masked man, his fists clenched, blood pounding like a jackhammer.

(Adrenaline. Fear. Determination. _Excitement._ How it _always_ was.)

Scarecrow aimed the pistol at Bruce. “Take one more step and I’ll-” Playing cards sliced into his hand, and he fired with a shout.

The bullet hit a crevice between Bruce’s chest and shoulder. He recoiled, hearing pearls clatter to the pavement.

He still stood, ignoring the pain, trying to tune-out his mother’s voice behind him.

More playing cards. Bruce’s fist smashed into Scarecrow’s jaw.

The gun smashed against Bruce’s head, tossing him aside. His ears were ringing.

There were fast footsteps, and Bruce blinked, his vision blurring for a moment as he refocused.

A knife jabbed into a spindly arm, and brown leather fists curled into flannel. Holding him still.

Bruce threw another punch, landing into Scarecrow’s stomach. A loud cackle reached his ears, high and familiar – so he did it again. And again.

Blood seeped from the burlap mouth. _Disgusting._

Bruce shoved the thin figure to the ground.

Joker’s eyes were wild, the acid green pools practically boiling.

“Batman…are you alright?”

His leg and shoulder hurt, but he wasn’t alone in the decaying mess of Gotham. Not anymore. Maybe he never really was. Maybe the city watched him back. Like the gargoyles on the buildings. “I will be.”

Scarecrow coughed at their feet. “You’ll…be having _nightmares…_ for weeks…” Dark holes stared up at him from the pavement. “Knowing…that I’m _out there…”_

Joker’s lip curled, his eyes blazing with what looked almost like real fire, and pressed a hand to Bruce’s back to guide him towards a rotting wooden bench that surprisingly held his weight.

“You’ll have…to _kill_ me to sleep! But you _won’t!”_ Scarecrow taunted, wheezing a laugh. Then he was out of sight, blending in with the bloody concrete like he had melted away.

He didn’t care that Joker’s red mouth was too wide and dark, and that the dark tresses of his hair curled and whipped in the air, dissipating at the ends constantly. He couldn’t feel anything but a rapid heartrate, the aches in his body, and the weight of everything on his shoulders – he wanted to feel _him,_ taste the blood and flesh to make sure he was real, that he wasn’t the body in the pile of people he’d failed, that he wasn’t going to crumble and bleed in front of him.

“Wait here for me,” Joker whispered, pressing leather fingers against his cheeks for a moment.

Bruce watched him go, reaching out for him. His body told him to move. To run to him. He couldn’t let him be hurt. Not by Scarecrow. Not by anyone.

Bruce’s will held. He was told to wait. Joker would be back.

Joker was stepping towards the train, his low heels clicking on the pavement. Stopping at the red lump on the ground.

“You want to know the _difference_ between you and me, doc’?” Joker taunted, anger and humor bending together, “People will say you’re _crazy,_ after all this. They’ll say you’re a _psychopath,_ or a _sociopath,_ or something like that. But I’ve known since I _met_ you – you’re not crazy. I’m _legitimately_ ill. You’re just a _monster.”_

A cough.

“You liked watching us all _writhe_ in front of you, didn’t you. Watching us _suffer.”_

The lump cried out – Joker’s heel was grinding into something on the ground.

Joker laughed. (Bruce blinked – he was not at Ace.) “Aww, what’s wrong? Can’t take a little _pain?”_ A grunt. “This isn’t even the _worst_ of it, you cheap _pencil!_ You know this whole scheme you’ve got? It’s not _original._ Lady Arkham tried this kind of thing _two years ago!_ Batman stopped _her_ at the Sky Rails, too!” A crunching noise, like joints popping, following by another grunt. “Terrorizing the city? Planting chemical bombs on trains? All the same!” A crack, like breaking bone, near the front of the red thing. _“Ha ha ha ha ha!_ Thomas Wayne had been using patients as lab rats before we ever arrived! You’re nothing but a _knock-off!”_

A wheeze from the ground. “You…don’t scare me…”

Joker frowned, amusement slipping from his face like it had been washed away. Thunder rumbled from above. “Oh, yeah? I know what _might.”_

Joker moved, dragging the lump into the empty train car.

Bruce strained to stand. He couldn’t… He _wouldn’t…_

“Revenge, huh… How _selfish…”_

“Oh, that’s where you’re _wrong,_ Scary. This isn’t _personal._ This is for _Arkham_ – for _Gotham_ – for all those people you’ve hurt with your little _experiment,”_ Joker spat, tugging the large gas canister forward, “See, I _know_ you. You’re a _monster_ \- you’re going to _heal,_ and then you’re going to _talk,_ and that will cause a lot of trouble for Brucie and little Jackie – she says hi, by the way.”

Scarecrow’s body was in the doorway. The canister was in the middle of the car. He was straining to move as Joker backed away, a playing card in his hand.

Bruce strained forward. _No…_

“People will say you’re crazy anyway – so why not just make that the honest truth?”

In the blink of an eye, the proverbial clock was one to midnight, and Bruce was standing on the precipice of a choice all too clear to him as he stood in one of Gotham’s corroding Sky Rail stations:  Bruce Wayne’s potential life or death.

A potential leap into darkness.

Someone’s sanity, in exchange for his normal life, the man behind the bat.

…he _couldn’t._

It was too cruel. It was something his father would have – _had_ – done.

Bruce couldn’t bring himself to become that. He couldn’t let Joker become that, either.

_(There should never be another Thomas Wayne roaming the streets.)_

“Joker,” he gasped, “no…”

Green eyes met his, fiery and dangerous, wild and manic. _“You…!_ Don’t you _understand?”_ His hands clutched at Bruce’s cape, desperate and pleading for mercy. “I can’t let him ruin Bruce’s life! Not again!”

“Please,” Bruce begged, his hands finding Joker’s arms and clutching. (He’d held them before.) _“Please…”_ He pulled him forward, not feeling the aches or pains, just a weight pressing against his. Just his arms around him, like they were the only two humans left in their broken city. “Don’t go backward.”

He felt a breath release against him. The hands on his cape relaxed. It was like something washed away from the rust and decay surrounding them.

Scarecrow laughed weakly, crawling towards the center of the car. “You’re _afraid._ You think…dirtying your hands will _ruin_ you…” His hand clutched the nozzle of the tank, and dark eyes glinting white leered at them both beneath the burlap hood. “And _you’re_ afraid…of letting him _down…!_ You have to… _confront_ your fears…to be _reborn…!”_

Bruce reached out, desperate to save what he had tried so hard to stop. “NO!”

Joker pushed Bruce away with all his might, rolling to the ground as pressurized gas sprung into the air with a hiss.

Bruce’s vision swirled as dark laughs floated into the air, disturbing and gasping, like nothing he had ever heard before.

A rattled breath came.

Not his…not Joker’s…

“Wait…what is…”

Bruce winced, looking at the green smoke billowing out of the train car, and the lying figure looking at him, with wide, brown eyes glinting behind glass, all hidden beneath the Scarecrow mask.

“What… No…! NO!”

A shriek the likes of which Bruce had only heard on film screeched at him. Scarecrow writhed, flinching backwards, trying to curl in on himself as he hit the back wall of the train.

“I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO…!”

Bruce took shallow breaths. He was far away enough from the train car, but the gas might still have an effect. He sat up, feeling his leg scream at him as he jostled the handle of the knife still buried in him, and tried to stand.

Scarecrow flinched further away. _“KEEP AWAY FROM ME!”_

Joker blinked from the ground, rubbing his head. “Did he…?”

Bruce shook his head. “He inhaled it.”

“…I think I missed the set-up,” Joker mumbled. “Why did he go and gas himself?”

“He wanted us to confront our fears - to be reborn, like he thinks he was, thirty-four years ago.”

“Yikes,” Joker grunted, standing and straightening his back with a wince, “and I thought _I_ had image problems…”

Scarecrow retreated further into the car, kicking and trying to get away as if Bruce and Joker were advancing on him.

Joker put something in his ear from his pocket and wriggled his finger. “Oracle?” He winced, and Bruce heard someone shouting. _Oracle…Tiffany._ “Look, just – WILL YOU SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE? _Geez…_ Look, Bats and I are _fine,_ Crane is…uh, _rounded up,_ so to speak…”

Silence, for a moment, and Bruce decided to go back and sit on the bench. He’d gotten fear gas into his system, hadn’t he? That was why everything was looking…wrong. Gotham wasn’t like this, normally, was it?

“No, he’s just gone off the deep end… What? _Ha!_ No, no, he got a face-full of his Fear Toxin…”

Bruce looked on his belt. He had something for these situations. He usually always did.

“Oh..? Oh, good, I was going to ask, I just… Yeah. Um…thank you. We’ll be waiting.”

Bruce found a syringe. Was that it?

Joker parked a seat next to him. “Clean-up crew is on the way.” Green eyes darted down to his belt. “You got hit by the gas earlier, didn’t you? I saw the smoke as the train was barreling away. Oracle had to use her shot on that hostage girl – she was screaming like a banshee in heat!”

Bruce blinked, and his vision wobbled. “Joker… I can’t…”

“Oh! Yeah, no worries, let me.”

Bruce felt the frigid air hit the skin of his stiff arm, and a moment later felt a pinch there.

“Don’t worry, Batman,” Joker grinned at him, his eyes soft despite the sharp edges of his face, “I’ll take good care of you…”

With a red grin blurring in his vision, Bruce fell into darkness’ waiting arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, wasn’t that fun? I hope it was. I can write emotion and horror and romance, but fight scenes are always hard. >:T Tell me if it turned out okay.
> 
> As always, thanks to all of you for supporting this story by any means. I’m truly honored and flattered that so many of you enjoy my work!!!! You guys make me feel like I can take on the world!!! >:D (And a super special thanks this time to i-bet-you-wish-i on tumblr for [this sweet fanart](http://i-bet-you-wish-i.tumblr.com/post/177275734228/inspired-by-fordarkisthesuedes-story-at-the)!!! Remember, if you have fanart, I WANT TO SEE IT! @ me or tag me on tumblr, or leave a comment here so I can find it easily, please!!!)
> 
> We’ve got at least one more chapter, and the epilogue. Expect it within 1-2 weeks, and keep circulating the links. :)


	17. Morning Serenade for Tenor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is _incredibly_ NSFW. ;)

It was that horrible moment between a dream and wakefulness, where Bruce only vaguely realized he was conscious. All he knew was that he was not in bed, and that it felt like he had weight on top of him.

He tried to feel his surroundings without opening his eyes. Something in his head still wobbled, like he had a bout of vertigo.

It was somewhat warm. Dim lighting. It smelled strange, almost like frying oil.

(Not the cave. Not his home. Not outside.)

“It’s not like _that,”_ came a familiar voice, ringing slightly in Bruce’s ear, “I mean, I _hated_ Riddler anyway. It’s just… I didn’t understand why Bruce just _forgave_ you.”

Bruce tried to open his eyes. It was blurry at first, but kept sharpening with each blink.

“We’re _both_ murderers. We should both be _irredeemable_ to him, but… Here you are.”

A dim, white, metal ceiling was forming before his eyes.

He heard a soft scoff. “And here _you_ are,” a feminine voice replied, leaving a pause to dangle in the air. “To be honest, I’m not sure, either. Sometimes I think it’s because he’s known my family for so long. And sometimes, I think he’s…paying me back. For Dad.”

“…I asked him once. Why he put me back, let you walk out… He said it was the best way he knew how to help. _Heh,_ he really doesn’t know when to _quit_ helping, does he?”

Bruce blinked up at the ceiling as the old scar in his side gave a slight twinge. He felt strange. One of his legs ached, as did his shoulder, but they were a numb sort of ache, like he’d been stitched up on the medical bed in the cave.

“You know I’m sorry, right? For, uh, the whole… _trying-to-kill-you_ thing?”

“You mean when you…?”

 _“What?_ Went _crazy?”_

The voices echoed a little, like the place was somewhat hollow – John and Tiffany, Bruce realized. A bit of silence fell, and Bruce could hear something hitting the ceiling in a constant barrage. Rain, perhaps.

“I had a series of mental breakdowns throughout the most stressful weeks of my entire _life,”_ John continued in a flatter voice, “Dr. Leland says words like _‘crazy’_ boil my complex affliction down to an insultingly dismissive stereotype.”

“Sorry…I…didn’t know.”

“Better late than _never._ Besides, it _was_ pretty crazy – like a solid _ten_ on the mental pain scale!”

Bruce’s hazy brain finally connected all the dots:  he was lying in an ambulance. He blinked hard, struggling to remember what happened. The train station, Crane, the gas…he’d inhaled some.

There was a light clicking noise, like John was playing with wooden tongs. “I’ve been…trying to make up for it. The whole thing. To Bruce.”

(The train…it had been grotesque. Rusty, bloody, and shifting constantly. Crane had talked to him. Taunted him…)

“I guess we’re both doing that,” Tiffany said.

John gave a bitter laugh. “By _what,_ getting a paycheck with his _name_ on it?”

“…I’ve been ‘Oracle’ since the day Bruce let me walk.”

(Bruce recalled seeing John. Joker. Cards. A bench…)

Another clicking noise, and John’s voice sounded muffled. “…an’?”

Bruce tried moving his fingers.

“And I’ve barely had a day off _since._ Batman may have retired, but he still wanted someone to help the cops, and he wasn’t about to let me roam the streets alone. So…we thought of ‘Oracle’. I use the tech to spy on the city where I can, and give the GCPD a head’s up. I’ve only ever been outside in my gear twice, and that was specifically to hand off some new tech I’d developed to Gordon.”

“…and Bruce didn’t work with you?”

“Only the first couple of nights.”

“Did ‘ou ‘alk abou’ i’?” John asked, his voice muffled again.

“Not really.”

(Crane, inside the train car… It came back in a rush – the decision he’d made, the feel of John pressed against him. Crane had gassed himself in the end.)

There was a pause, and John tittered a little. “Hey, speaking of the _commish,_ does his moustache get bigger every time you see it, or is it just me?”

“…I think that’s just you.”

“Really? I _swear_ it’s wider than the last time I saw it.” There was another click. “You _sure_ you don’t want some? You keep looking at it.” There was a shuffle. “Here you go – house fried! There’s a spoon in that box _somewhere…”_

“You sure…?”

“Yeah, I know it’s – _here_ it is… Besides, it’s the one way to guarantee someone wakes up! It’s always when you fall asleep or have your mouth full…”

“Thanks.”

Bruce could flex both hands and feet. He _should_ be able to get up…

He strained to put weight on his non-aching shoulder. His vision held, and he pushed himself up to sit.

John was staring at him from the bench at the right end of the ambulance, his eyes glittering as he gave a muffled noise of joy and waved a pair of chopsticks at him. His mouth was clearly full. For some reason, his left hand was cuffed to the metal railing on the stretcher.

Tiffany sat opposite him, looking like she was trying to quickly swallow a mouthful of whatever had been in the Chinese take-out box in her hand. She was still in her gear, but her goggles from the Halloween party were perched on her head.

Through the window, Bruce could see several police cruisers and officers in rain slickers. The sky was still dark, so either it was before seven o’clock or the rain storm he’d predicted had been incredibly heavy at some point.

Bruce had several questions – he supposed it was best to start from the beginning. “What happened to Crane?”

“Mmph – _hospital,”_ John answered. Something had colored his tongue reddish-pink. “I handed your antitoxin over to one of Gordy’s guys, but apparently one dose wasn’t enough.” His grin widened, devilish and dark red. “He was still awake when they carted him off. He’s scared to _death_ of you,” he purred, looking proud and incredibly fond of Bruce, and then darted his gaze to the corner of the car like he was thinking before meeting the white lenses of the cowl again. “And _me,_ I think. He kept trying not to look at us. I don’t know what he was seeing, but he was scared out of his _mind.”_

Tiffany finally managed to swallow what looked like fried rice. “The EMT said they’ll keep him for observation, but I know he’s definitely being charged with terrorism and conspiracy.”

“She heard them talking,” John added, tapping his ear.

Bruce thought back to the group from the Sky Rail hub. “What about the others? Dotty, the hostage?”

Tiffany answered this time. _“Also_ in the hospital – I gave ‘Dotty’ the antitoxin I had when John called me over just as you left.”

John just beamed. “Aaand _they’re_ all being charged with terrorism and conspiracy, too! And Kip for resisting arrest! _Ha,_ I would’ve thought a freshly cracked _rib_ would’ve made him more docile after being tased… Guess he prefers zip-ties to handcuffs.”

Bruce didn’t remember cracking anyone’s ribs. John must have hit Kip for some reason when he’d dragged him away from the train.

Now that he thought of it… “How did you two get here?”

John laughed like it was a joke. “We _drove_ here, Bruce! How-how _else?”_

Tiffany dug the plastic spoon into her rice container. “John took the Batmobile and I stayed behind to finish disarming the bombs and keep a watch on Crane’s gang; Iman managed to get into the electrical system of the train car and stop it. Apparently they have a remote driving feature in case of emergency. I only drove here after I cleared up everything with the bomb squad. They were questioning John when I got here. He’d already handcuffed himself to you.” Tiffany gave a dry smirk. “He really pissed off the EMT.”

“She should have realized I wasn’t going to just _leave!”_ John grumbled. “I mean, last time I didn’t know if Batman was even alive! Besides, the cuff slides around, it’s not like I was in the _way.”_

Bruce felt a swell of warmth in his chest as he momentarily buried his hand in his gloved palm. (Another sweet gesture marred by a somewhat poor choice. Bruce sometimes didn’t know what he was going to do with John.)

“She stitched you up,” Tiffany continued, swallowing another bite of rice, “and I helped explain everything. John ordered take-out about four minutes after we waited for you to get up. Oh – and Gordon wants to talk to you. Can you move?”

Bruce shifted his wounded leg and shoulder as John put the ends of the chopsticks in-between his teeth and bent down to the floor. His leg still ached, but he knew from experience that he would be able to put pressure on it. “I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, but you _always_ say that,” Tiffany chided playfully.

There was a clink of metal, and John had freed himself from the handcuffs. He must have stolen the key to them, somehow. “How much do you remember, buddy?” He asked, sticking the chopsticks into a container of what looked like rice and fried balls of dough covered in a red sauce.

“…I don’t remember what happened after Crane gassed himself.”

“Oh, that’s easy – I told Tiffany and Iman what happened, gave you an injection, and then you passed out. I made sure you were comfy before the fuzz arrived,” John explained with a grin, “I guess those little antitoxins leave you better off than the sedatives _we_ were given post-drugging. No one at Arkham could ever remember more than a third of what happened under that stuff…”

Bruce thought back to when he had brought John back to the Batcave. “Did you remember what happened after I took you out of Arkham?”

“Uh, mostly?” John answered with a shrug as he made a see-saw gesture with his hand. “Honestly, I thought it was just a fever dream until I started walking around the Batcave,” he admitted with a little giggle, “I mean, you _did_ pin me to the floor – that normally _only_ happens in my dreams.”

Bruce desperately fought down the embarrassment trying to burn its way to the surface; Tiffany gave John the look of someone thoroughly weirded-out. John didn’t seem to notice, still eying Bruce with a teasing sort of affection.

He really wanted a distraction. “Is Gordon still outside?”

Tiffany stood. “I’ll get him. Is it okay for me to leave? I still have to go to work later.”

Bruce already knew he was going to skip that day. “As long as you’ve given your statement.”

“Alright… I’m taking this rice with me. And those banana things, if neither of you want them.”

John tossed a small hard-foam container at her from the box sitting beside him. “I’ve got enough heart-attack-in-a-box. Tell Iman I said ‘thanks’, by the way.”

Tiffany pushed the high-tech glasses back onto her face. “I’m pretty sure you already told her,” she said with a cocked smile, “but sure. Take it easy, Bruce.”

“Ooh, wait!” John almost lunged, whipping his stolen phone out at a lightning speed, and pulled her into a side-armed hug by her shoulder. “Smile!” There was no flash this time, but there was a digital shutter sound, and Bruce already knew he’d be in charge of holding onto that snapshot. “Ha! Not bad!” John almost collapsed back onto his seat, wincing as he did so. “See you on the outside, Tiffy.”

“Bye, John.” Tiffany opened the ambulance door and stepped outside. “And don’t call me ‘Tiffy’!” She added with a rather half-hearted frown.

“Okay, Tiff’!” John shot back with a wave as she shut the door behind her, the sound of rain pattering down pavement lingering in the air for a moment. John watched her go, his wide smile shrinking drastically. “I guess that’s it, then…”

Bruce carefully swung his legs over the edge of the stretcher, making to stand. John looked up and tried to stand with him, something soft and wanting in his gaze, but the ambulance door all but slammed open and an EMT climbed inside.

“Don’t move,” the woman instructed with a very determined glare. She looked familiar; if he remembered correctly, she lived in Crane’s neighborhood… Hadn’t she been the woman who passed them by when they were coming out of Crane’s house two days ago?

“I’m fine,” he said before she could open her mouth.

“I personally removed the bullet from your shoulder,” she glared, shifting his arm in several directions, “On a scale of one to ten – how much do any of these motions hurt?”

“Two, at most.” _(Maybe_ a three.) “Really, I’m _fine.”_

“Listen, buster brown,” she said with a glower, “you and your associates may have just saved the city, but I know more about medicine than you do, and there is no _way_ you’re fine. You’ve got eight stitches inside your leg and another three in your shoulder. You’re going to need help getting out of here, if anything.”

Bruce felt embarrassment creep up and shift right into anger. He knew it wasn’t the EMT’s fault that she didn’t know how bad he had had it before, but politeness took a back seat anyway. “I know what I’m doing.”

The woman’s steely gaze tried to search him. “I doubt that. You should get to a hospital.” She gave a frustrated sigh, typing something on her phone. “This has been one hell of a night…”

John was watching from the bench, rubbing his recently-freed wrist. “Yeah, not every day you find your neighbor being hauled away for being a danger to society,” he said with a knowing little grin that quickly shifted into an attempt at a sympathetic look.

She stared at him, surprised. “How did you know he was my neighbor?”

 _“Vigilanteee,”_ he teased, tapping his nose with a little smile. “It’s okay, though – you couldn’t have known that he was like that, Mrs. Wensleydale. Not unless you’ve spent time in his _chair…”_

Her badge was not visible on her person. Concern and fear mixed on her face as she reached for her belt, only to grasp at nothing.

John held up her badge with a rather evil grin, letting it dangle from his finger on the elastic wire. “You need any pain meds in your cave, Bats?”

Ah. He was holding a bit of leverage in exchange for supplies. Bruce just hoped he wasn’t planning on trying to drive off in the ambulance. “I have plenty.”

John fiddled with the laminated card between his fingers. “You really ought to keep your hands on this better,” he chided playfully before tossing the medical ID to her. She caught it and hurried out of the car, avoiding John and his amused laugh.

The ambulance door didn’t shut behind her, though. The rain mixed with John’s barely concealed laugh as the other door was opened, and Commissioner Gordon and Detective Bullock stood there, one serious and the other looking more disgruntled than usual.

“Batman – good to know you’re up and around,” Gordon said, one hand in his pocket and the other clutching a large black umbrella. “Mr. – _Joker,”_ he corrected himself, “please put your… How the _hell_ did you get out of those?”

John just gave a little grin and held out the cuffs to him, the small key still firmly in the lock. It was an excellent question, really. Just how good was his sleight of hand? “A magician never tells his secrets,” he said in a low tone, “but a clown can fit an awful lot of things in his sleeves,” he giggled.

“I bet you can, you fr-” Detective Bullock started to mutter before sensing Gordon’s warning glare, “Just turn around and put your hands behind your back!” he said louder, his annoyance increasing tenfold, wielding a different pair of cuffs in his hand.

John’s grin faded, and he shot a look over at Bruce with a strange expression. Hurt, disappointed, just plain forlorn… But he dutifully turned his back to the detectives with both hands behind his back.

Bruce hadn’t gotten to see him get taken away last time. They’d already shuffled him back off to Arkham by the time he woke up. His heart swelled for a second time, realizing that all John was willing to let himself be put back in Arkham just to see him off. Just to see him one last time.

“Wait,” Bruce started, the voice changer coming in full throttle, _“I’m_ taking him back to Arkham.” The cuffs clinked on, and John was watching him curiously. Bruce felt like he wanted to swallow the heat in his throat. “I’m the one responsible for getting him out in the first place. It’s only right I take him back.”

Detective Bullock’s round face grew slightly red as his lip curled unpleasantly. “What, you think just because you-”

Jim put a hand on the other detective’s shoulder. “Whether or not I’ll allow you to escort ‘Joker’ back to Arkham, Batman, this is still a precaution. Partner or not, he’s still an escaped mental patient with a violent history. And he stole an officer’s cuffs to prolong his arrest.”

 _“Commandeered,”_ John corrected, “I was only _borrowing_ them.”

Bruce stood to his full height, quietly gritting his teeth as he stepped out of the ambulance and into the rain. He was just thankful the Batmobile had an automatic transmission; his left leg really felt like it had been stitched up. He’d need some painkillers when he got back to the cave. “I’ll be back in a moment,” he addressed John.

“Harv’, why don’t you keep an eye on him?” Jim said, gesturing to the vehicle with a move of his shoulder.

Detective Bullock grumbled something, but followed as he was directed, ending up sitting right where Tiffany had been minutes ago. It felt strange to close the doors on them, but Bruce didn’t want to stray very far; Harvey Bullock was the type to act rough with criminals, and while Batman was violent when he needed to be, police brutality was an entirely different matter, and one he didn’t stand for. He’d have no problem pulling John out of there at a moment’s notice if Harvey so much as tried to slap him.

“This has got to be one of the longest nights of my career,” Commissioner Gordon grunted, pulling a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket. “First the terrorist attack at the diner, and now finding you and your motley crew sabotaging what might have been the biggest attack on the city in the past decade. I don’t know how I thought I’d be able to get a wink of sleep in.” He flicked the old engraved lighter open, and in the seconds it took to light the tobacco and slide the lighter back into his coat, he’d already taken a long drag. “I talked to ‘Joker’ while you were being stitched up. Legally I can’t take his word for anything that happened – but legally I should’ve tossed you in a cell years ago, too,” he said with a slight smirk. “Oracle backed up about half of his story, so I’m inclined to believe it, but there’s a couple of things I need to check with you on.”

Bruce folded his arms, trying to keep the weight off his aching leg by leaning on the other. “Go on.”

Jim let out another puff of smoke. “Joker claimed you’d found maps of the Sky Rails in Gotham Cemetery, where Dr. Crane had been hiding out. Mind telling me how you traced him there before us?”

Bruce chose his words carefully, thinking of Jackie Lant’s second chance. “We found a laptop in Crane’s house, along with some of his research. I took the hard drive and cracked the encryption on it. Joker and I figured he was fixated on the Court of Owls, and it led to the cemetery.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be carrying that drive around with you, would you?”

“I’ll drop it off in your office later.”

“Thanks. I need all the evidence I can get.” Jim let out another puff, the curling smoke disappearing into the rain that pelted down on them. Unlike John, Jim Gordon did not hold the umbrella over both of them. “Our good doctor was shaking like a leaf when we strapped him to the stretcher, but he seemed almost relieved to be out of your guys’ sight. Preliminary exams suggested he was suffering severe hallucinations and showed high levels of adrenaline. We found the empty gas tanks in the train car.”

Bruce knew an implied question when he heard one. “The small tank went off before the car started moving. I and one of his gang were drugged as a result. He set the other one off after Joker and I cornered him here.”

Jim stared at him, the crafty wheels of his mind almost visible. “I’m surprised he managed to, given that he has a broken right hand and a bowie knife sticking out of his left arm.”

(Bruce raced through his options. He truthfully didn’t remember parts of what had happened…) “Joker was trying to administer the antitoxin to me. I only remember seeing Crane touching the tank with his left hand before the gas spewed everywhere.”

“So you don’t remember how he got in that car?”

“No,” Bruce lied, thankful that the voice modifier and the cowl’s lenses covered any hint of his dishonesty.

The commissioner took another drag, letting it sit in his lungs a bit longer as he thought. “Dr. Crane also has several fractured ribs and a broken fibula. Detective Bullock saw the blood trails by the car, suggesting he was dragged into it. Joker claims he put him there to get him out of the way.” A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Bruce got the subtle joke of John’s claim, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle in response. “I’ll take his word for it, but for the report’s sake we’re writing you both left him in there after you fought. God knows the evidence was literally being washed away before we were able to photograph anything.”

 _Small miracles,_ Bruce thought. He didn’t like to think of what would happen if Gotham figured out what John had originally planned to do.

“The bomb disposal went a lot faster thanks to you,” Jim said, his moustache quirked like he was genuinely smiling at him. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“It wasn’t just me, Gordon,” Bruce replied, “Oracle and Joker deserve most of the credit for the disposals.”

“We both know they wouldn’t have known to do it if you weren’t around,” Jim replied casually, “Oracle is a damn marvel, but she’s heavily reliant on her tech, and Dr. Crane wasn’t much for keeping things in the digital age. And forgive the pun, but Joker’s a wildcard – there’s no telling what he would have done if you weren’t around.” He took another drag of his cigarette, tapping the ash off the end with his index finger. “You’re the best detective I’ve ever worked with that doesn’t carry a badge. I hope you’re really considering coming back, Batman.”

Bruce thought of the many sleepless nights, and the countless amount of energy he poured into tracking down the criminals and closing the seemingly endless supply of cases. The rush he got as he glided off buildings and busted criminal operations with the help of his fists. The wounds, deep and shallow, that he carried with him as reminders of his screw-ups and proof he was successful. The satisfaction he got, knowing he was clearing the city of corruption one night at a time.

Being Batman came with a price. Sacrifices he’d have to make.

But maybe now, he didn’t have to make so many. He had more people who could help, even if one of them had to be waited for. His normal methods of helping the city were making life a little easier, too, one day at a time.

He _could_ be both again.

“I am… But I think I’ll take it a bit easier this time,” Bruce answered, cocking a small smile of his own.

“Believe me, I understand.” Jim took one last drag. “I’ve got a team scheduled to go over Dr. Crane’s house again later today, after we finish up here. It’s just to see if we missed anything. I’d appreciate having that hard drive on my desk by three. I’m going to go home early, see if I can get some proper sleep in.” The cigarette was carelessly dropped to the pavement, and despite the ground being soaking wet, the commissioner still ground the embers out. “I’ve already got some people looking into Dr. Crane’s claim of storing more of his gas bombs at Arkham. I’d wait a couple of hours before you have Joker recommitted; the place will be a circus with everything else going on.”

Without another word, the commissioner opened the ambulance door, and Detective Bullock all but leaped out, striding away towards one of the cruisers with his face red and his brows furrowed. John was laughing to himself, barely stifling the noise by biting his lip.

Bruce didn’t quite care about what John had said to the detective, despite his curiosity. Whatever it was, Bullock had likely deserved it – John despised rudeness, and Bullock was not known for his tact. John had at least been smart enough not to retaliate physically. “Joker, we’re going.”

“O-okay,” John answered, trying to stifle his giggle.

Jim gently turned him around and unlocked the handcuffs with his skeleton key. “We appreciate your help, Joker, but some of tonight’s events are going in your file – including your temporary departure from Arkham Asylum. Next time I see you out here, you better have a sanity certificate with your name on it.”

“I guess next time Arkham employs another _Jonathan Crane,_ I’ll just call you,” John said with a knowing smile, grabbing the fortune cookies from the cardboard box on the floor before sliding off the back of the ambulance. “But have no fear, Commissioner – I’m a _model_ patient,” he added with a thumb’s up.

Bruce led John away from the ambulance, keeping a hand on his upper arm like he was putting him under arrest. John gave a little wave and a _‘see ya around!’_ over his shoulder to Gordon as Bruce power-walked them through the rain.

John kept his head down, clearly trying not to get his make-up wet. Bruce wished he could just cover him with his cape like he did before.

 _There’s a metaphor in there somewhere,_ Bruce thought to himself as he hustled John inside the Batmobile. It was that, or his romantic side was really trying to muscle its way into the Batman’s façade.

Bruce had barely closed the car door behind him when John grasped his jaw and turned his face towards him, the gentle feel of soft leather pushing against his wet stubble as John leaned in with the same adoring gaze Bruce had seen many times before.

It was the softest kiss they’d ever shared, but it was still a little harder than what would be considered a ‘sweet’ kiss. Bruce had leaned into it automatically, feeling like a bubble had popped somewhere in his brain as he wrapped an arm around John’s shoulders. He knew he was getting lipstick transferred onto his mouth, but as they parted Bruce found he didn’t care as much as he normally would have.

“I didn’t get to kiss you goodbye,” John murmured, hovering an inch away. The smell of sweetened frying oil ghosted over Bruce’s mouth. “I thought I wouldn’t get another chance to.”

He felt his heart clench. He hadn’t even thought about that. He’d been so focused on the mission… “I didn’t kiss you this morning, either.”

John giggled, winding his hand around the back of the cowl. “That’s okay, Bruce. I would’ve just wanted more anyway.” He leaned in again, and Bruce met him open-mouthed, not quite caring that he could taste what must have been sweet and sour sauce and fried shrimp. Bruce swept his tongue gently against the one snaking between his teeth, and in no time they had once again devolved into clinging on to one another’s backs as they tried to push the other’s tongue into staying still, wetting each other’s mouths as saliva blended into one flavor and taste buds scraped against teeth and hot, moist flesh. Bruce heard his voice modifier’s groans turn deep as John let out little gasps between breaths, hot air puffing over each other’s faces in the short bursts they parted.

Bruce didn’t think of anything; he just let the sensations of it all burn into his memory. The strange taste, the pressure writhing against his tongue, the small gasps and whimpers flowing from John’s throat, the heat of his mouth seeming to spread to the rest of his body…

“Does this car have an auto-pilot?” John managed to ask; there was a needy look in his too-green eyes. His red lipstick was smudged and smeared across his lips, and his hair was damp and messy, and Bruce committed the look to memory.

“Yes,” Bruce breathed out. Part of him knew they had to get moving despite the desire to just lean back in and continue for as long as they could breathe.

John grinned, wide and dangerous, and tugged one of the cowl’s pointed ears. “Oh, good. Could you take this off for me?”

“Why?”

His long fingers pulled away from the helmet and slapped onto the crotch-plate of the Batsuit, making Bruce’s breath hitch. “I want to see your face when I blow you to Kingdom _Cum.”_

Bruce felt his face blaze hotter than before.

The idea was appealing. _Incredibly_ appealing. Bruce hadn’t imagined having John while he was in the suit before. That was an entirely other level of fantasy, a messy one that would make Bruce confront the notion of their power dynamics… But he wanted to touch John, too, and that would be difficult in such a small space as the Batmobile.

“What about you?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” John purred, rubbing the hard plate over Bruce’s groin. Bruce couldn’t feel a thing, but the squeak of leather there was more than enough to get his imagination going, and he remembered what it felt like to have John rubbing him through his jeans. “I just want a taste of you before you, uh…drop me off,” he finished with a note of distaste and a little shrug. “I’ll be happy enough,” he added with a smile.

“I’m not taking you back to Arkham yet,” Bruce replied, pulling John’s hand away from his lap.

John slid away, clearly confused. “You’re not?”

“I’m taking you home first.” Bruce moved to start the engine and hear it roar to life, the dashboard lights casting colors over them both. “Your uniform is still at the house, and the GCPD has to finish searching Arkham for Crane’s gas bombs. There’s no need to rush.”

“…so you _don’t_ want a blowjob?”

“I never said that,” Bruce amended, “but I also need a shower, and this suit isn’t easy to take off in the car. And I drive a lot faster than the auto-pilot.”

John pouted a little, but he nodded like he understood. “I _was_ hoping I’d get to keep these,” he said, tugging at his the edges of his coat and suit jacket, “I guess that’s something to be grateful for… Ooh!” His face lit up, distracting Bruce as he started to pull away from the train station’s parking lot, “This means I get to take care of you for a while!” He said excitedly, clapping his hands together.

“Take care of me?”

“Of course! I told you I _would,_ didn’t I? And you _did_ get hurt, Bruce.” He reached over to pat his thigh, a genuinely caring smile on his lips. “I’m here to help, after all.”

*~*~*~*~*

Bruce let the steady stream of the Batcave’s shower hit his back, his mind wandering all over the place as he sat on the plastic bench John had hauled out of the cave’s store cupboard for him. It didn’t seem to matter where he went, his thoughts kept rolling back to him. Crane, Gordon, John; Jackie, Alfred, John; Iman, Tiffany, _John…_

He was still surprised John hadn’t joined him in there. He thought it would be the perfect opportunity for John to see Bruce in all his glory, wet and dripping and wanting something as soothing as a bout of post-battle shower sex, but apparently John didn’t think of showers as inherently sexy. Maybe it was Bruce’s fault for honestly saying he would be alright as long as he didn’t have to stand for too long.

He blamed the lack of his playboy mask, personally. John had helped undo the Batsuit and shuffled him into the shower as he babbled about cleaning things up for him, barely letting his touch linger over Bruce’s back muscles, and had only popped back in to drop off something for Bruce to wear and ask what he normally cleaned the Batsuit with. Bruce was tired enough not to argue, and he had a feeling that John would have protested if Bruce had asked him to join him in there anyway. John seemed happy to make up for the lack of Alfred’s presence.

Bruce rinsed the conditioner from his hair, careful not to move too quickly and further agitate the freshly stitched shoulder. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in there, but it was definitely longer than normal. He wondered if the officers in front of his house were going to leave after getting the word that Batman was taking Joker back to Arkham, or if they were going to have to wait to leave until John was actually checked back in. He hoped they would call his cell phone instead of trying to knock down his door when he inevitably didn’t respond.

Now that he thought about it, when had John last come in?

Bruce shut off the water, gritting his teeth as he stood. It didn’t hurt as bad as it might have; getting up was harder than walking.

He toweled off, wringing the moisture from his short hair into the soft downy cotton, and cast a look over at the pile of clothing on the countertop next to the boxes of extra bandages. John had put Bruce’s quilted robe there, as well as a pair of pajama pants, his slippers, and his cell phone, with a little yellow sticky note on top that had nothing but a familiar clownish smiley face.

As if Bruce needed reminding who had put them there.

He felt the need to kiss John hit him. Soft or hard, it didn’t matter, but he wanted it. He knew it would pass, but maybe he was close by…

Thankfully dressing wasn’t too difficult, as Bruce was balancing his weight onto his good leg and the robe was easy to pull over his arms. He didn’t know if John had thought about that or not, but it certainly helped…

Frigid air hit him the moment the bathroom door opened, and he pulled his robe a little tighter as he crossed his arms. At least it wasn’t winter yet.

He spotted his gear laying on the table in the distance. Bruce wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he moved closer, his leg aching with every step.

Everything was laid out like a body on an operating table – or a stiff at a morgue – with the cape stretched out like wings, and there was the distinct smell of freshly used kevlar cleaner. Bruce inspected the inside of the chest cavity, firmly ignoring the thought of it being a body, and found that John had done an adequate job. At least it didn’t smell like stale sweat and blood anymore.

There was a sticky note by the external drive on the Batcomputer nearby, too – ‘Already copied everything!’ with a little heart and another smiley face. Bruce double-checked, finding everything accounted for. (He was surprised to see the video files from Crane’s drive were there, but he certainly wasn’t shocked to see the folder had been labeled as ‘please don’t look :(’.) He was impressed John had thought that far ahead, honestly; it certainly saved Bruce some time.

He was going to head upstairs when he noticed something across the room. It didn’t look quite right. He didn’t want to walk all the way over there, so he leaned against the risen table and fixed the helmet over his head, switching on the binocular eyesight.

The sheets were still pulled over the cases in his ‘rogue gallery’, with the exception of John’s; Bruce noticed Joker’s colorful grappling gun sitting back on the pegs. Joker’s utility belt and grinning ‘Jokerang’ still sat there, but it looked like the purple trench-coat John had acquired in the cemetery was folded to lay on the base. (Bruce wasn’t as upset about losing his father’s coat as he might have been. Bruce would never have worn it in the first place, and at least the leather purple one didn’t have bullet holes. He just hoped John put the bullet-proof vest somewhere Bruce could easily find it.)

Over in the display cases for Bruce’s gear, all the sheets had been stripped away. Bruce was fairly sure he had left some up when he had collected what he needed. He wasn’t sure if that was thoughtful or not, but John had at least put his gear back in the appropriate places.

But there was something red in the line of Batarangs. Bruce had to enhance the binocular vision to see it:  a single Batarang had a kiss mark planted on one wing, and what looked like ‘BBS!’ and a little smiley face scribbled in the same dark red lipstick on the other.

John _had_ said that Bruce would ‘hold on’ to the Batrang he’d given him. He clearly thought Bruce wouldn’t remove it if he made it a note for him.

(Well… He wouldn’t. Bruce had never gotten rid of that ‘get well’ card, either. He didn’t really _do_ ‘cute’, but John could, and _did_ , and Bruce couldn’t bear to throw away or clean off anything that John put his mark on.)

Bruce felt himself smile, thinking of how happy John would be that Bruce had left it out in the open. The thought that he’d leave it there until John came back one day was bittersweet, and it intensified Bruce’s urge to kiss him.

He set the cowl back down on the table, shifting it so the whole thing didn’t look so much like a deflated cadaver, and made the somewhat painful walk to the elevator. The ride up was quick, but he did wonder to himself where John was…

The clock wall slid backward, and Bruce stepped into the parlor, knocking straight into John.

John said what sounded like Bruce’s name around the spoon in his mouth, almost spilling whatever was in the black mug in his right hand as he tilted backward. Bruce steadied him on reflex, minding the steaming mug, and noticed that John was carrying a second one in his other hand.

That was definitely something with chocolate, judging by the color, but he could smell peanut butter.

Bruce took the black mug from John’s outstretched hand – it looked like tomato soup, thank God.

“Sorry, buddy,” John said the second he pulled the spoon out of his mouth, “You caught me by surprise! I was going to meet you down there!”

Bruce gave John a very quick once over. “Is that mine?”

“I sure hope it is,” John answered, casting a look down at the black silk robe. “I’d feel reeeal awkward about walking around in someone else’s stuff… Especially if they were keeping it in the back of your closet,” he added with a sly little smile.

John was not wearing pajama pants like Bruce was. His pale calves were in full view. (The thought that he wasn’t wearing _anything_ underneath it sent a burst of heat into Bruce’s groin.) “Aren’t you cold in that?”

“No…? I mean, I _have_ been moving around non-stop since we got back. It’s warm to _me,”_ John said with a shrug. He seemed to have completely missed Bruce’s open invitation. “Oh! You should be _sitting,_ mister.” He put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, gently pushing him towards the couch, and Bruce had no choice but to obey, not having anywhere else convenient to go. (Bruce should have known better than to guess they would end up anywhere else. Somehow everything always came back to the parlor.) “Doctor’s orders,” John added with a deeper tone.

John had a knack for making even innocent words sound like dirty talk when he wanted them to. It almost always took Bruce by surprise, and no matter what Bruce was doing or wearing, that tone always made him feel like he was touching satin.

Bruce sank into the couch, his stitched-up leg practically sighing with relief. John was already moving towards the fireplace, twiddling the spoon in his fingers. (Was it going to be lit for mood lighting or warmth? Both, probably, but it certainly made Bruce think back to the way John kissed him in the car…)

“Uh, how do I turn this thing on?”

“Push the key down and turn clockwise.”

He didn’t know if it was the mug in his hands or seeing the curves of John’s tight rear emphasized by the shiny silk, but Bruce suddenly felt very warm. He took a sip of the tomato soup and came away with something spicy sitting on his tongue. “What did you put in here?” He asked, casting a look down at the red liquid. Little oil spots and bits of dried green herb floated on the surface.

John was pushing at the turn-key with all his might. “Stupid… _thing!_ Oh, _uh_ , basil, a bit of half-and-half, and some chili oil I found in your cupboard – you said you preferred hot stuff to sweet stuff, right? Is it bad…?” He cast a worried look over his shoulder.

He took another sip. It was actually pretty tasty. “It’s a lot better than it normally is,” he said with a smile. He watched John continue to fiddle with the switch; more accurately, he took in the whole sight of him kneeling on the rug and tried to distract himself from his own dirty imaginings by drinking. “John,” he called when the other man looked ready to kick the thing in frustration, “try going the other way.”

Flames leapt up in the grate in an instant, and rather than be embarrassed, John just enthusiastically sat down on the couch like nothing had gone wrong, despite the obvious wince he made on contact with the cushions.  

It was hard to really pay attention to anything else when John was sitting next to him with one leg curled under his opposing thigh and the other dangling over the edge, turned to face Bruce partway. Bruce was tempted to shift his own position to match.

“You know, for a guy with a kitchen _that_ size, I’d swear you didn’t use it,” John teased, spooning a bite of what looked like chocolate cake into his mouth. “I’m surprised you haven’t let your fridge go _au natural,”_ he said after a swallow.

“I don’t cook much,” Bruce said, burying his embarrassment into another gulp of soup.

“You know there’s stuff on the internet, right?”

“Wow, _stuff_ on the _internet_. I never would have guessed,” Bruce shot back dryly, a smirk forming on his lips.

John swatted his shoulder with the spoon. “You know what I meant,” he grumbled, not looking as mad as his tone suggested, “Seriously, Bruce, even _I_ can make simple stuff. You’ve got a giant pantry and more money than I can imagine, but going by your freezer you hardly eat anything that isn’t _ready-made.”_

“Alfred’s the cook in the house,” Bruce admitted, looking down at the mug in his hand. “And I guess it’s kind of a bad habit. I’m usually just so focused on the mission I don’t have time to eat, let alone make something.” He took another sip, letting the spicy flavor coat his tongue. He felt John watching him. “Even before…all _this,_ food is just a second thought to me.”

John slowly pulled the spoon out of his mouth. _“Mission,_ huh? I guess that’s _one_ way to put it…”

Had Bruce never described it that way to him before? Bruce shot him a look – he looked contemplative as he sucked the last of the chocolate from the spoon. Now that he’d thought of it… “John,” he started, putting the mug down on the coffee table with no care about any potential marks it left behind, “when we were in the cemetery, you said you took a long time to figure out why I don’t want innocent people hurt. What exactly did you mean by that?”

“Exactly what I meant,” John replied, pointing the spoon at Bruce momentarily before digging back into his mug-cake. “I’ve had a lot of time to _think,_ Bruce. About why we, uh… _fell apart._ Before. And the more I thought, the more I realized that _code_ of yours stems from your…uh, what would you call it? Origin? I’d call it an origin.”

Bruce was growing confused. He was tempted to take John’s mug away until he explained himself.

“I mean, you were _eight_ when your parents were brutally murdered right in front of your face. I’m no professional, but even _I_ know that messes a person up. I figured – young, tiny Bruce doesn’t know the truth about his parents, so he innocently thought it was random, like everyone else, and after going through the motions of comprehending the reality of death, he…probably didn’t want that same thing to happen to anyone else. Random, innocent deaths, I mean. So he just stuck to that notion like glue.”

Bruce’s throat felt tight, and heat curled in his gut as blood drained from his face.

He’d been right. Completely right. Batman had formed in Crime Alley, but he’d been truly born into Bruce after his parent’s funeral, when he’d looked at the gravestone and told them he wouldn’t let something as senseless as their deaths happen again.

“And it’s a _good_ notion. You’re right about _that,”_ John poked the inside of his mug, contemplating it like it was Bruce’s brain instead, “but I’d wager it’s where the whole ‘no killing’ rule came from, too… I… _kind_ of get why you stopped me from turning _Waller_ into human Swiss cheese,” he continued, spitting the name out like a curse, “even though I don’t _agree_ with it. But I don’t get why you stopped me from gassing _Crane,”_ he said with a fierce tone, staring at Bruce with those acidic green eyes that pinned Bruce down and burned away all his protective layers, “It’s not like I would have broken your _rule._ I respect you enough not to do _that._ He just would have been… _incapacitated,”_ he finished with a dark, animalistic grin.

It didn’t hurt as much as it did before. It wasn’t that Bruce had gotten used to feeling that kind of heartbreak, but that he’d…expected it. “I couldn’t let you do that,” he answered, feeling hollow and drained, “I just…” He felt vulnerable and raw, but for once John couldn’t see why. He didn’t understand, and he wouldn’t unless Bruce opened up. Bruce felt everything in him seize for a moment; he didn’t want to, but he had to. That was life, wasn’t it…? “After learning what my father did… I couldn’t let you do the same thing.”

He didn’t want to look at the portrait staring down at them. He looked at the floor. At his hands, his fingers laced together, closer now that he was leaning over. At anywhere else but at the Waynes, or at John, or _anyone_ who was going to see more than he’d ever let out in the open.

“I loved my father. But what he did was… _horrifying._ I saw what he did to Mrs. Cobblepot, back at the Mayoral debate Penguin and the Children of Arkham had infiltrated. He turned her irreversibly insane against her will – for his _own benefit._ He…might as well have shot her point-blank. And I… I know you were trying to _protect_ me, but -” Bruce finally looked back at John – “I couldn’t let you become like that. You’re _better_ than that.”

John looked like he might cry any second. “Oh… Bruce…” he said quietly, the air rushing through his vocal chords in a strained hush, “Come here.”

Bruce had barely moved towards him when he felt John pull him forward by his back. He let himself bury his face in the crook of the man’s neck as John’s hands curled innocently around his shoulder blades. Bruce wrapped his arms around him, just trying to breathe steady and not let the hot tears prickling at the corners of his eyes fall.

(He didn’t cry. He _wouldn’t.)_

“I’m sorry,” John whispered in a cracked voice, trying to soothe Bruce by stroking lines with his thumbs. “I didn’t mean for it to _be_ like that.”

“I know.” Bruce squeezed him a little tighter, letting John’s body heat seep into him. It felt like it was warming his very bones. His lips brushed the soft skin of his neck, and he just held himself there and let the feeling wash over him.

John nuzzled his hair. “No you don’t,” he muttered with a watery chuckle, “or you wouldn’t look so sad.” Bruce felt almost like he was somehow going to spill. “Talk about being a stalwart hero... Can’t even bend your own code halfway…” John kissed his scalp, making Bruce feel incredibly tender. “Our knight in black kevlar,” he joked lightly before kissing the shell of his ear. “You really try to save _everyone,”_ he murmured. It was quiet and adoring and grateful, burning Bruce as much as it healed him.

It was not possible for the human body to melt and solidify all at once, but Bruce certainly felt like that was exactly what his body was doing. He kissed the skin he had pressed himself against, breathing in the scent of black cardamom and smoke.

Why did Bruce’s soap seem so much more appealing on John? Bruce kept filling his nostrils with it as he kissed his way up John’s neck, for once not feeling so urgent. There was no clock counting down the minutes they had left together; Bruce could take as much time as he wanted, at least for the next hour or so.

John giggled a bit when Bruce kissed the corner of his jaw; he massaged the back muscles his fingers had ghosted over before, pressing all ten digits in and moving in a slow circle. Bruce pulled away to look at him properly, still feeling like he’d been scraped raw, and the watery, admiring gaze that greeted him soothed him a little. His chest ached, and he couldn’t pinpoint the cause.

“Are you going to kiss me, or just stare all day?” John asked in a huskier voice, a teasing smile on his lips.

“Both,” Bruce shot back, the barest smile tugging at his mouth as he moved to caress John’s cheek. “You _are_ incredibly handsome.”

John let out a little chortle. “No, _you_ are,” he teased, dragging his fingers up Bruce’s back.

Bruce wished he wasn’t wearing anything, so he could feel it properly. He leaned in and kissed John softly, feeling familiar heat start to shift south at the little hum John made in reply. _“You_ are,” he mumbled against John’s mouth.

John pulled him back in, gripping the soft robe in his fingers as Bruce wound his hand in his slightly damp green locks, kissing him harder until he pulled away with a little _pop_. _“You_ are,” he purred in the lowest voice he could do, a hungry gleam in his eyes as he grinned.

Bruce kissed him open-mouthed, tasting chocolate and peanut butter on John’s teeth. It mingled with the chili oil still sitting on Bruce’s taste buds, and the flavors blended together, contrasting yet complimentary. One hand still pet John’s hair as the other slid up one of his silken thighs, pushing the smooth robe up as he went.

They broke for air, and John decided it was his turn to leave a hickey on Bruce’s neck; he went straight for a hollow spot on Bruce’s throat. His teeth were sharp and wet, grazing the skin as he sucked it in-between his lips, making Bruce hiss and clutch at John’s hip. He wanted to grab him and kiss him harshly, remind him who had been on top six or seven hours ago...but it was hard not to want John to leave a mark on him, too.

Whether John knew this or not, he seemed to choose the best time to open his mouth wider and suck _harder,_ chuckling to himself as Bruce gasped. (Oh, that one was _definitely_ going to bruise.) He let it continue for a moment, almost wanting to rock into John, but when he started to bite down a little too hard, Bruce fisted his hair and pulled his head back, feeling impatient.

He grinned fiendishly up at Bruce, giggling a little, and Bruce let his grip slack as John pulled himself away. _“Ooh,_ if I wasn’t so sore, I’d ask you to fuck me right now…”

Normally the sound of John’s sensual voice would have lit his libido on fire, but the investigative part of Bruce’s brain was not fully shut off, and he couldn’t help but zero in on certain words. “…you’re sore?”

“Well, _yeah,”_ John answered, sitting up and fixing Bruce with a hooded, bone-melting stare as he ran his hands over the soft material covering Bruce’s chest. “I’m glad I didn’t stop you from just ramming in,” he purred, “I’m going to be feeling it for _days.”_

“You mean that _hurt?”_

“Of course it did.” John searched him for a moment, the heat in his eyes melting into confusion. “What’s that face for? I _wanted_ it to hurt. It’s a _good_ hurt,” he soothed, an affectionate smile curving his lips as he cupped Bruce’s face. The pad of his thumb ran over Bruce’s cheek. “Don’t look at me like that, Bruce. If I wasn’t all bruised and aching down south right now I’d swear this was a dream,” he finished with a guilty little chuckle.

Bruce watched the little emotions flicker over his face. Sweet and sad, guilty and knowing. For a moment, he couldn’t believe it, but Bruce knew the smacking hand of reality when it hit him, no matter how soft the blow was.

Even if it hadn’t been violent, Bruce hadn’t been as careful as he normally would have been, and that was exactly what John had wanted.

“John, you…” He was angry. Hurt. Worried. “I thought I was… I didn’t _know_ it hurt.”

“And I told you, its fine. I _wanted_ it to hurt.”

“You should have told me!” Bruce shouted, emotions he’d tried to keep a leash on trying to break free. He grabbed the hand stroking his face and held it tight. “You _lied_ to me!”

“Oh, and you _never_ do that!” John shot back, glaring with a spark in his eyes. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d _stop!_ I’m not one of your flimsy debutant girls, Bruce – I’m not going to break into a million pieces just because you pound my ass too fast!”

“I know you’re not!”

“Then why are you _acting_ like it?!”

“I’m not!” Bruce breathed, feeling too hot. “You promised to be honest with me! If I had known that’s what you wanted-”

“You would’ve acted all guilty and you wouldn’t have had fun!” John retorted, yanking his wrist away from Bruce’s grip. “And you _know_ it!”

(Bruce liked to think he wasn’t sure, but he had a nagging feeling that he _would_ have felt guilty at hurting John, even if he’d wanted it. He might never be able to shake the memory of Ace Chemicals, where they sat across from each other, bleeding and bruised in more ways than one.)

“Damn it, Bruce, I wanted you to just let _loose_ for a change! I wanted…!” He trailed off, conflicted thoughts seeming to run rampant as he grit his teeth, tightening his hands into fists before letting go like he was releasing all that pressure into the atmosphere. “I didn’t want anything to come between us! No _rules_ , no _prohibitions…_ no masks.” His expression softened. “Just you and me, Bruce. Not at Arkham, not at Ace, not in Gotham’s alleys. Just _us,_ right _here.”_

John had been selfish and selfless all at once, getting what he wanted as he let Bruce take hold and give into his baser needs. The thought burned and confused him, despite it sounding almost rational. It was a notion as conflicting as it was right. A very _John_ thing to do, and something that somehow fit them. But it didn’t mean it wasn’t wrong in the first place, nor that it was rational enough to be sane; it was too abstract for that.

“John, it… It _would_ have been us.”

“But I wouldn’t have known that,” John said softly. “You don’t… You don’t _know,_ Bruce, what it’s like for me to be back out here.”

Bruce felt some of his anger dissipate, but it was still burning in his chest like a furnace. “Then _tell_ me.”

John stared at him, unsure and vulnerable, but eventually his shoulders sank and the fire in him seemed to cool. He sighed and leaned away from Bruce, choosing to look at his hands in his lap instead, gripping the delicate fabric harder than he should. “It’s like…a dream I’m about to wake up from. When I woke up in the cave, I thought… I thought none of this was _real,_ until you hugged me.” He looked far away, like he was reliving it in another time entirely. “It feels like I’m disconnected from the world sometimes; when it’s like that, I need to _feel_ something to know I’m where I think I am, and when I can’t I just go along with everything. But when I’m with you…I need to be _sure._ I don’t want to find that everything we’ve said or done together is just a product of my over-active imagination.” He gave a very tiny smile and a shrug as he poked fun at himself, looking up at Bruce with unshakable honesty. “And I like being hurt like that anyway.”

Bruce felt like he could hear his heart hammer in his ears, a steady elevated beat. John had wanted pain to ground him. Not just a prod into a bruise, or the sting of a cut, but something aching that would sit in his hips for a days. A reminder that Bruce had said he loved him, and that they had come together on Bruce’s bed; a sign that it all hadn’t been a dream.

Like the scar on his palm, or on Bruce’s side, but much less damaging.

Bruce took John’s scarred hand in his. “John,” he started, “why didn’t you tell me before?”

“You…wouldn’t have let me work with you.”

“Of course I would have,” Bruce said honestly, “John, you’re the only person I would let have my back.”

Green eyes searched him, probably looking for some sign that Bruce was being dishonest. When he found nothing, John snorted, a real smile forming. “You _would,_ wouldn’t you? You _nut.”_

“I guess it takes one to know one,” Bruce teased dryly, caressing the white knuckles underneath his fingertips. “Does this feel real?”

“Well, even with your painkillers I’m still all _achy,_ so…yeah.”

Bruce thought carefully. He didn’t want to hurt John further, considering the rollercoaster of a night they’d had… He brought John’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against the knuckles, inciting a small giggle. “And that?”

“Mm-hmm.”

He turned the hand over and kissed the scarred line in the middle of his palm, feeling the rougher skin scrape against his lips. He felt the muscle underneath twitch, and heard John gasp as he kissed a little more firm, darting his tongue out just enough to taste his skin and let John feel the heat. “And that?”

John was starting to look a little starry-eyed. “Uh-huh.”

“So, if I wanted to go slower with you,” Bruce said, placing a kiss over the protruding vein in John’s wrist, “would that be okay?”

“Something wrong with going fast?” John asked, cocking a brow, “You had no problem humping me like a gorilla yesterday,” he teased, his thin lips curling into a sultry smile, “or kissing me like you’re dying of thirst.”

“That’s my point,” Bruce grumbled, feeling his face warm as he leaned closer to John’s mouth, “We keep rushing things. I want to try taking my time with you,” he said, winding his free hand around John’s waist.

“…you’re a hard guy to say no to,” John muttered, his smile widening. “But is that because of love, or because you’re a guy who definitely doesn’t hear ‘no’ very often?”

Bruce kissed him, pushing aside his thoughts on his own hypocrisy, and let the scarred hand go to run both of his own hands over the small of John’s back. John was still smiling against his mouth, leaning in with a little hum, and Bruce felt aware of so many things at once. His lips were still sort of chapped, but they were as gentle as the rain drops hitting the concealed parlor windows. Sweet heat still lingered between them, dancing the line separating taste and smell, and it was tempting to give into his base urges and ravish his mouth.

Long fingers wound over his arms, brushing firmly against the soft quilted robe so he could presumably feel the firm muscle beneath. He was letting Bruce take the lead in working their mouths together, and the vigilante had a feeling he was doing it to observe him more than placate his need to go slow. John had a tendency to imitate Bruce’s swipes of tongue and lip movements, only being originally bold with his hands and words – it was no surprise that he was trying to learn kissing techniques. Or get ideas.

Bruce’s hands slowly ran over his back, sliding the silk against his skin to tantalize. John leaned into the kiss more, groaning when Bruce traced up the back of his spine.

He held back from kissing him harder or pressing into the muscle over his shoulder blades. Instead, he sucked John’s lower lip between his, and when he’d gotten a nice little whine in return he tugged it carefully between his teeth, applying only the lightest pressure to scrape and recapture it. John flicked his tongue out, asking for more, and Bruce caught that, too.

John’s fingers swept down his chest, sneaking under the fabric to trace over scars, letting out breathy noises as Bruce sucked on the end of his tongue.

He wasn’t considered a playboy for nothing. John thrust his tongue into his mouth the next opportunity, but Bruce didn’t bother tussling with it, instead drawing back to suck it like it was his cock, rolling his fingers over John’s thighs at the same time at an agonizingly slow pace. The little stuttered _ah_ that came from that too-wide mouth was all Bruce needed to hear to know his tactics were working their charms.

He grunted as he felt his nipples being pinched harshly. He pulled away, seeing John’s somewhat smarmy grin widen as he tugged the tender buds.

“That’s for teasing me,” John muttered, fluttering his lashes as he pushed the hardening flesh around with his thumbs.

Bruce knew he was trying to goad him into moving quicker. Well, it wasn’t going to _work,_ even if he _was_ salivating a little more and heat was smoldering in his abdomen. His mind might have been pushing for more, but he resisted crushing his mouth against John’s, choosing to just press his fingers into the man’s thighs a little as he resumed kissing him.

John seemed content to just sit there and take it this time, sliding his hands further south as Bruce curled his tongue around his own. He stroked a line down the center as John moved his palm over the scar in Bruce’s side.

The muscle there twitched as the scar tissues gently scraped together, heat and uneven textures adding a new dimension to things. Bruce was powerless for a moment, unable to stop the moan at the back of his throat, and felt John’s slips stretch slightly in response.

He kissed him harder. Not _too_ hard, not as fierce as they had been in the car, nor in his bed – just hard enough to tame the hot thing in Bruce’s throat and hands that longed to claw and pull and crush John against him. Need, Bruce might have called it, or loneliness. _Possessiveness,_ he thought, massaging John’s hips.

(Perhaps love, or passion, or all of it mixed into one chaotic mess. It was impossible to take such a furious urge and attach a single label to it.)

He felt John’s leg curl over his, careful not to push at the center of the large waterproof bandage on his calf, and he shifted suddenly, grabbing Bruce’s hips and moving closer so his thin thigh was sitting between his muscular ones. John looked so tender, the bright greens of his irises hazy, his plumped, reddened lips parting to call out Bruce’s name with a soft adoration.

He could barely stop himself from just lunging forward. Passion was bubbling under his skin, only restrained by the fact that John’s knee was gently pressed against Bruce’s growing erection and the billionaire’s hands had found themselves sliding over the firm, slim ass he’d been ogling earlier.

Tongues swept eagerly against each other, and Bruce felt his dick stiffen the more it was pressed against. He pulled away when John gave a very loud moan into his mouth, feeling like he was going to lose it.

“Turn around,” Bruce said, trying not to sound demanding, “I want to do something.”

“Ooh, I hope it’s disrobing,” John teased, squeezing Bruce’s hip before sliding away to shift his position. “That thing’s soft, but it sure gets in the way…”

Bruce darted his tongue out to feel how swollen his own lips had gotten as John settled his back to him. The flavors of food had mellowed out into just _John_ in his mouth.

He pulled the black silk down over John’s shoulders and upper arms, leaving it pooling at his elbows. John just giggled, his body shaking with the laugh.

Bruce leaned forward and kissed the back of his neck, feeling the short hairs tickle his nose as John gave another titter – that quickly devolved into a long hum as Bruce kissed the first bruise he saw.

He kissed the ones on his shoulders and the bony blades, smoothing over the few farther down with the tips of his fingers.

“Hmm, maybe you were right,” John hummed, “about this whole ‘going slow’ thing…” Bruce gave the largest spot a slow lick, applying pressure, and John straightened and tilted his head back. “That feels so _good_ ,” he growled, low and sensual, and Bruce wanted to wrap his lips around the tender flesh and suck. He restrained himself, instead kissing the junction of John’s neck and gliding his hand towards John’s groin.

 _“Oh_ – Bruce, not…” It was a pitiful protest, as John leaned into the hand grasping him through the silk with a wet gasp.

His cock heated the material in an instant, and Bruce moved to nibble on the edge of John’s ear as he gently stroked his hardening length.

His pants felt too restrictive. He undid the button on the pathetic excuse for a fly and practically felt his erection spring free. It was ridiculous, and Bruce couldn’t help but smile as sucked John’s earlobe, still stroking him with one hand.

“You’re my hero, too,” Bruce breathed in his ear, “you know that?” He pet him slowly, enjoying the little mewling gasps that kept spilling from his mouth. “You’re amazing.” (God, he felt so hot in his hand. So _hard._ He wanted to taste it again; he compromised by tracing the shell of his ear with his tongue.)

John’s hand seized his, and turned to look at him with a glassy stare. “Sit against the couch,” he commanded with a grin that sent a pleasant shudder down Bruce’s spine.

He did as he was directed, moving back into his original position and keeping one arm on the back of the couch, and John gracelessly turned around and planted his face in Bruce’s lap, not bothering to pull his robe up or off as he wrapped his right hand around Bruce’s shaft.

“Oh, _finally_ ,” John teased as Bruce grunted into a slow stroke, puffing hot air over his shaft, “I’ve been _waiting_ for this.”

Bruce might have protested further talk if John hadn’t wrapped his lips around a section in the middle, giving it a sucking kiss as he rolled his thumb over the pulsing vein in the base.

He felt his eyes roll up as he let out a low grunt.

John licked a stripe all the way to the tip, and when he dabbed at it with his tongue, poking the slit, Bruce shifted his gaze to John’s crotch, laying at an angle. His long legs were partially curled onto the couch.

He felt the hot mouth suck at him, softly and slowly as if he were savoring the taste, and Bruce entertained the idea of reciprocating.

The couch was big enough. It might be a strange angle, even uncomfortable for Bruce, but the pros outweighed the cons, and the desperate need to do something more than just wind his fingers in John’s hair was staggering. He knew he was salivating as he felt John’s tongue fold around part of him, hot and wet and coaxing him towards that distant shore of release.

He wanted to come like this, into the worshipping mouth of the sweet, dangerous man he loved.

He wanted John to feel the same way.

“John,” he tried, tugging gently at the emerald strands of his hair, “stop for…a moment…?”

John hollowed his cheeks as he drew his mouth to the top, making a slurping noise before pulling away with a wet little pop and eyeing Bruce mischievously. “Yeah, buddy?”

How on Earth Bruce was still endeared to that nickname at a time like this was an absolute mystery. It sent a little jolt into his heart. “I want to lay on my side,” Bruce explained, hearing his voice come out husky, “so I can do you, too.”

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and he considered the cock inches from his face. “You know I’m mostly going by instinct and what I’ve seen in porn, right? I’m not sure if I could, uh… _pay attention_ enough.”

Bruce slid his hand over John’s silken rear, enjoying the spark it brought to his expression. “I only want to repay the favor,” he purred, “You can stop if you have to.”

He only had to think for a moment. “Alright, but you have to take your pants off. They’re in my way.”

It was difficult to stop from just throwing himself down on the couch and pulling John’s leg over his shoulder. John was watching him carefully as he slid off the pants and maneuvered into the right spot, his eyes following the sway of his dick with a dark, hungry stare. Bruce was nearly dizzy with arousal by that point.

It was strange to see John’s erect cock from the other way around, but the odd thought didn’t last for long; as soon as he’d settled himself, John had pushed the soft fabric of the robe aside and tucked it away. “I take it back – leaving _this_ on was a good idea,” John teased, puffing air over his sensitive skin with every word, “It’s like unwrapping a _present.”_ Then he resumed sucking him, moaning into the action like he’d been dreaming about it.

Bruce reminded himself that he probably had, and it made him buck slightly into John’s mouth to think that he’d want him that badly. John hummed around him like he was laughing – at least until Bruce grasped his shaft and took his pale pink head into his mouth.

He was no expert, but he knew what he liked, and the feeling of having a tongue swirl around his head, moving in a slow spiral until it got to the center, was something that no other penetrative act could match. He did his best to concentrate on doing just that as John’s groan sent a vibration shuddering through his loins.

Bruce’s free hand felt the pale sac sitting there, giving the gentlest massage to them he could. In what felt like retaliation, John took as much of his dick into his mouth as he could without hitting the back of his throat. The wet sucking heat combined with the tongue trying to wriggle against the shaft drove Bruce to an almost unthinking state. He sucked John a little harder, running one hand over his bony hip and the other over the soft inside of his thigh as he tried to bring him closer, pushing the silk out of the way so he could touch hot skin.

John gave a few tight sucks, barely managing not to scrape him with his teeth, and pulled away with a dramatic gasp of breath. He couldn’t seem to speak, but he did stroke Bruce’s hot cock with a wonderful amount of pressure that made Bruce hollow his cheeks in kind as he bobbed his head down his length, tasting salty skin and sweat.

He was certainly getting close – he didn’t care if his jaw was starting to hurt, and he could feel his heart pound almost as if he was in a fight. He felt pre-cum start to dribble out, and sure enough John’s tongue caught it and slurped at it obscenely.

But Bruce was determined not to come yet. The part of him not completely clouded with heady lust thought back to anatomy, and he swiftly moved from touching John’s thigh muscles to pressing against the area between his anus and his sac, rubbing the sensitive skin in strokes, just barely teasing the edge of John’s puckered hole. John mewled in response, dribbling bitter pre-cum into Bruce’s waiting mouth.

In a fit of lust-filled victory, Bruce pushed against the delicate spot of skin and sucked gently on the tip, and John cried out, letting go of Bruce’s cock and clutching onto his ass, digging his fingers in.

_“Bruce!”_

A few slow wet strokes of his shaft, and John came with Bruce’s name shouted into his thigh, his dick twitching with each spurt of cum that Bruce dutifully swallowed. (It was terribly bitter, and it took serious self-control not to wince, but the sticky feeling it left in his mouth was still a turn-on.)

Bruce knew better than to linger afterwards, despite the temptation, so settled for kissing his thigh, chasing little beads of sweat.

John lay there for a moment, panting as Bruce pet his thigh and traced over his abdominal muscles, kissing where he could. He couldn’t help but feel a little smug – and aroused – by hearing John call his name. Feeling the wiry muscle underneath his smooth skin reminded him of how powerful he could be, be it with a punch or a kick.

(Bruce remembered the leg-sweep John had done on Ivan – who was certainly no light-weight – and felt a hot pang shoot to his groin.)

He felt lips on the base of his cock – John resumed stroking Bruce like he’d known exactly where he’d left off, going achingly slow. He teased the curved edge of his head, and Bruce found he was losing focus.

He gave an agonizing lick to the pulsing vein on the side, pressing his tongue into it as he made a slow, hot trail of saliva to the tip – but somehow, it wasn’t the act, but the deep, longing moan John made that caused Bruce to fall over the edge into the familiar sea of white, and he could only bury his face into John’s thigh and give a shuddering whimper.

John took it all in his mouth, humming in delight as he licked the last drop away. “Ahh – you’re the most _delicious_ bitter thing I’ve ever tasted, Brucie.”

Bruce was already flushed and hot and barely comprehending anything, but the compliment made him feel almost like he was a running a fever. He kept his face planted in John’s leg. He wanted to just fall asleep right then and there, awkward position and sore leg be damned.

John clearly had other ideas, though, because he slid away, almost falling off the couch in the process. “Woah, _ha ha,_ that was _close!_ Uh, can you sit up?”

“…in a minute.”

Bruce swore he had only shut his eyes for a few seconds, but the next thing he knew John was slowly sitting on the carpet in front of him, his robe closed and his spoon in his mouth.

“Still sleepy?” John asked around a mouthful of cake.

“Yeah.” Contradicting himself, he pushing himself to sit up, and John passed him his mug – he’d clearly found time to reheat it, as well as pull a blanket out of… _somewhere_ and drape it over Bruce. He took it, washing down the taste of sex with several gulps of spicy tomato. He’d never wanted a nap more in his life.

“You can nap, you know,” John said pointedly, “My stuff’s in the dryer, and I put your phone on loud.”

“…how are you not exhausted?”

“Ha! I _can’t_ be,” John teased, putting his now empty mug on the floor. He leaned on the edge of the couch cushion, looking up at Bruce with absolute adoring. “I’m taking care of _you.”_

“Then nap _with_ me.”

“…it’s a small couch, Bruce.”

“You can lay on top of me,” Bruce reasoned, lying flat on his back, “You’re not heavy.”

John stood and hovered, hesitating. “…can you wrap your blanket around me?”

“Sure.” (Anything to get him to lie there with him, get him to rest, get them to just fit together like they were puzzle pieces…)

John nuzzled his neck as he lay in his arms, giggling as the large dark blanket was pulled and tucked around them, and as Bruce kissed his forehead and started to drift off to sleep, he thought he got the joke.

It was almost like wrapping him in Batman’s cape.

*~*~*~*~*

The drive to Arkham was quiet. John was somber now that he was back in the asylum-issued uniform.

Bruce wondered if maybe John had thought he could stay out. He didn’t want to just ask – they both knew what Bruce’s answer would have been at the suggestion, and it would’ve hurt both of them to hear aloud.

Still, after a while of uncharacteristic silence, Bruce reached over and held one of John’s hands, the glove of the Batsuit not allowing him to feel the heat of it or the thigh it rested on. The corner of John’s mouth curled upward as he gave a sad little hum, deciding to interlace their fingers and rest them in the middle of the gap between them.

“At least I know you’ll visit me this time,” he said.

Bruce gripped the steering wheel. He didn’t like thinking of the turmoil John must have gone through after he’d been incarcerated. He’d said once that he’d thought he’d ruined everything between them. “I’ll try to visit more often,” he replied. He was glad he didn’t have the cowl on yet – Batman’s voice wouldn’t have sounded as sincere. “I’m going to try and see if I can do it later today.”

“Oh, you mean sound all panicked and desperate?” John beamed. “Like, ‘Don’t you dare tell me I can’t see him! I’m Bruce Wayne! What kind of asylum are you running that lets the Batman kidnap your patients?’”

“…I don’t sound like that.”

“Yes you do,” John grinned, running his thumb over Bruce’s, “Besides, I love it when you get all protective and possessive over me. It’s cute.”

Bruce did not think he qualified as ‘cute’ at any time, but he wasn’t about to argue that. “I’ll have to remember that,” he smirked, squeezing John’s hand as they continued to drive towards Arkham Island.

“Oh, speaking of _remembering,_ I forgot to tell you – I mean, I was planning to when we were in the cave, but then you came upstairs and you kept kissing me, and I got really distracted from the sex and everything… Anyway, that cell phone! The one that traced us to that thug, Lee – I checked, and he had _voicemail.”_

“Who from?”

“Guess!” John grinned at him from the seat.

Bruce rolled his eyes, but played along anyway. They still had a while to go. “Well, I doubt it was Crane… And it _couldn’t_ have been Maroni. Was it Caesar?”

“Nope!”

“Ivan? He was close to Lee.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Kip?”

“Nooope!”

“…Ivy, or one of her gang?”

“Not even _close.”_

Bruce made a turn through one of his alleyway shortcuts. “Was it a relative of his?”

“No, you’re _way_ off.”

“Not _Jackie…?”_

“Geez, you’re bad at this! You remember how I said I kept getting calls while you were at work?”

He _did_ , now that John had mentioned it. “…you’re kidding. It was _spam?"_

John cackled, slapping his thigh with his free hand. “I know! I can’t believe it either! The auto-dialing industry led us to a body!” He sighed, wiping the corner of his eye. “What a hoot… Still, I’m glad he wasn’t at the train station. I didn’t bring extra zip ties.”

“So am I. He was probably the original bodyguard. He tended to shoot first and ask questions later.”

“…but you wish he was behind bars instead, huh?”

“You know I do.”

“…do you wish I was?”

“No.”

“Hm, I didn’t think so.” John was tapping his knee with his free hand, like he was thinking. “What if I came to stay with you? You know, like a house-arrest thing, where I’d be under constant surveillance with no way of escape?”

It…was not a bad idea, actually. Somewhat reasonable, even. Bruce was trying to improve Arkham the best he could with what resources he could, but it was still far from the best mental health care facility John could stay in. It was certainly possible, even if it would take some legal workarounds. “That’s…something to think about. You know we couldn’t have sex, though.”

“Well…uh, _yeah,_ but…I mean, I was happy enough just to be _friends_ with you, Bruce. I don’t _need_ to boink you all the time.”

“I…kind of meant for me,” Bruce admitted, feeling heat rise to his cheeks, “It would be hard to keep my hands off you if I knew you were in my house.”

John giggled, rubbing the knuckles of the glove. “And here I thought you had _stamina_ training… Does the thought of it _torment_ you, Bruce? Being so _close,_ and yet so _far?”_

“…it would, with enough time.”

“Then you’d know how I feel.”

Bruce didn’t think that was meant to sting, but it did. He wanted to put the car in autopilot and get the need to pull John close temporarily out of his system.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” John asked, cocking a small smile, “And…you love me, too? It’s not just some delusion I have?”

That did it. Autopilot was engaged and Bruce turned to him, taking his hand away just to hook their pinkies together and taking in the sight of John’s acid greens staring at him hopefully. “It’s not a delusion – or a dream. What we have, between us – it’s _real.”_ John’s face lit up. “I love you, John.”

John looked down at their hands, and chuckled to himself. “…are you pinkie swearing me?”

“Yes.”

He laughed, looking almost overjoyed. “You know – you know Crane didn’t believe me when I said you were my best friend?” He asked, his eyes watery despite the grin stretched over his face, “Not even a little? Even when you visited me every week?” He tried to bite back a laugh. “I almost believed it sometimes, under that junk he made, but… I _knew_ he was wrong; I _knew_ you loved me. I just…didn’t exactly know _how,_ then.”

“So…in the library, when you told me you knew that I loved you…?”

“Like I said, I just didn’t know _how_ you loved me – until you suddenly kissed me,” John smirked. “I mean, I _figured,_ by the way you kept staring at me, but I thought _that_ just was a delusion… Actually, wait – how long have you been in love with me?”

Bruce wasn’t really sure. He’d always been feeling like he was pulled towards him, like John was very slowly reeling him in like a fish on a hook. The past few days just made him realize how close to shore he’d been drawn, until it was too late. “I didn’t know until recently, but… It was a slow process. A while.”

“Buddy, _I’ve_ been in love with you for ‘a while’,” John teased with his knowing little grin, “That doesn’t really help me ballpark it.”

Bruce let out a breath through his nostrils. “If I had to guess, I’d say I started when we were at Café Triste.”

“Really?! Oh, I KNEW it!” John grabbed his wrist and pointed at him gleefully. “I KNEW that night was magically perfect! What did it? My animal magnetism? My outfit?”

Bruce felt himself smile back somewhat. “No. It was…when we were role-playing. Your talk of the lights in Arkham. I know it wasn’t meant for me, but…” Bruce hadn’t even realized how far they’d driven until he’d seen the stone posts of the old bridge through the window behind John’s head. “It was hard not to find it romantic.”

The gleam in John’s eyes shone as bright as stars. “You mean you didn’t…? Bruce, buddy, I’ve got _news_ for you,” he cooed, taking Bruce’s gloved hand in his. “You’ve _always_ been my light outside of Arkham.”

For a moment, Bruce only saw him, bathed in the light of the control panel, and the particulars of just how long John had been crushing on him or if John had ever felt anything remotely real for Harley at all didn’t matter. It was just them, _together,_ and this time there was nothing to stop him from pulling John over the barrier between them and kissing him for being the beautiful fiend he was.

(He wanted to keep him there. With him. It wasn’t rational, or right, or just, but his heart stung and quivered at the thought of having to give him up. Couldn’t they stay like this? Couldn’t the world just end with this, with them wrapped around each other?)

John was the one to pull away as they passed through Arkham’s gate, the Batmobile’s sensor automatically opening it for them. “You’ve got a show to do,” he murmured, stroking Bruce’s hair. “This is hard enough to do _without_ the hard-ons.”

Bruce couldn’t help the smile edging its way onto his lips, even as he pushed the cowl over his head and switched on the voice modifier. “I’ll see you soon.”

John just smiled at him, tender and knowing, and it made Bruce’s stomach clench with how very sane he looked. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thought process writing this was _"I'm gonna give them everything they want."_ And by "them", I mean you! Whether you kudos, comment, bookmark, or just read and enjoy - I love ya, and I want you to be as satisfied as I am with this emotional roller-coaster. We still have some loose ends to wrap up in the epilogue, though, so worry not - we'll see our precious dorks next week.
> 
> I always wondered how I can find so many blowjobs in batjokes fics, but I hadn’t found _any_ that do 69! I mean, maybe I missed some in the other universes – I _do_ have a pile of stories to read – but I decided to make up for the definite lack of it in the TT ‘verse. I hope you guys don’t mind. I was actually a little puzzled by La Petite Mort a few days after I posted it, because I realized after several rereads that it was missing something, and whyntir put me on to some of it (and gave me some _great_ inspiration for the whole parlor scene ♡♡♡) while my brain finished connecting the dots. Aside from an important little addition I have to make to that chapter, I realized that I'm usually so good at writing kissing, but there wasn't enough detail in the ones we had so far! So we got THREE hot kisses here, and an excuse to why Bruce wasn't paying super close attention to it before! (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ Huzzah!
> 
> Full editing job will be finished next week, when we have our final installment, the epilogue...! (´•ω•̥`)
> 
> P.S. I can’t send my boy back home without getting him his Sweet ‘n’ Sour Shrimp Heaven! The “heaven” part is how the fried shrimp balls are mixed with rice and the sauce. And maybe there’s special seasoning in there too or something? It’s up to you what makes it truly “heavenly”!


	18. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This final chapter is dedicated to you, dear reader, but especially all of you who comment. You inspire me.

_Sacrifices have to be made_ , he told himself, _You knew this had to happen one day. You knew this couldn’t last forever._

But he wanted it to. It was such a selfish thing, trying so hard to force the universe into his submission, just so he could have his way.

Parents always seemed immortal, and ever-present, until the rug was thrown from under your feet. Bruce knew that all too well.

He had to do this. Had to, had to, _had to_ – or else turn his back on himself, on his city, on reality itself. 

The ringing dials in his ear sounded like alarm bells. He pushed away the thought of just hanging up.

_“Hello?”_

Bruce felt his heart shake. He tried to take another deep breath, like the twenty he’d done before he managed to call.

_“Bruce? Are you there?”_

“Hey, Alfred...” (Oh God, that didn’t come out confident at all. He sounded like a sullen teenager.) “What are you up to?”

_“Are you alright? You sound shaken.”_

“Yeah, I’m… I’m okay, just… A lot’s happened since we talked.” Bruce shut his eyes and breathed deep, letting the familiar damp air of the Batcave fill his lungs. He heard the rush of the waterfall behind him and concentrated on that.

 _“And here I’ve been, actively avoiding the Gotham news,”_ Alfred commented dryly, _“It’s…not anything **major** , I hope? Tiffany and John are alright? Wayne Enterprises is still standing?”_

“No, no everything is… _fine_ , at home. Tiffany and John seem a little better than normal, actually.”

 _“Well, that’s…good to hear.”_ There was a beat of silence, and Bruce found himself chewing his tongue. _“What’s wrong, then?”_

Bruce felt like he’d rather take another hit of Fear Toxin than go through what he had to say next. He’d do anything to keep Alfred in the dark, play a third life, and just lie and pretend it was all fine.

“A few days ago,” he started, trying hard to round up the bruising sensation in his chest, “A few days ago, John called me. From Arkham. He… He needed my help. There was a doctor there who’d been abusing patients. Using them as test subjects. So I thought… I thought I could be discreet.” His next breath was steadier. Perhaps it was just because he was relaying facts. “I tried to gather evidence, and got caught, and… I inadvertently broke John out of Arkham, when he was drugged with the doctor’s experiment. I had to take him here, find an antidote, and… I…”

It was quiet on the other end; Bruce could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

“The doctor went on the run, and I couldn’t just be _Bruce Wayne_ anymore, after that.”

_“I see.”_

“I didn’t have any evidence. I had to find it, and _him,_ and I thought I could just… _point_ him at the GCPD, and then he _attacked the city!_ I couldn’t… I couldn’t be _myself_ to take him down after that! I had to…!”

Bruce realized too late that he was crying. He hadn’t cried for so long. He’d held them in after the incident at Ace Chemicals. He’d held them in when Alfred threatened to leave. He’d held them in when John hurt him and soothed him upstairs in the parlor.

He hadn’t cried since he’d discovered the mess his parents left behind.

He thought of the gravestone he’d visited not an hour ago. It felt cold to the touch, as always, and he’d looked at it and told them he was going to pick up where he’d left off, cleaning the city from the inside-out, no longer choosing the hand to hold the sponge, but using both, one after another. He’d told them he wasn’t working alone anymore, too, with more pride than he deserved to have.

“Maybe… Maybe I _did_ make some of my own enemies. I know I caused some of my own problems, and made others’ worse. But…if it… If it wasn’t for me – for Batman – the city would be suffering right now. I can’t… I can’t leave Gotham to fend for itself, Alfred. Please understand, I’m… I’m not _alone_ anymore. It’s different. It’s not a crusade, it’s… It’s a _choice_.”

There was a slow breath of air over the phone. _“I can’t say I didn’t see this coming,”_ Alfred resigned, _“but I’d… Hoped foolishly, I suppose.”_ There was a pause, making Bruce feel the hot tear streaming down his cheek. There was no one there but himself to wipe it away, as always. _“Bruce, you’ve always been a hero to Gotham, no matter what name you wear. Perhaps I was a little…presumptuous in saying you made your own enemies. Looking back, the likes of Oswald Cobblepot, Harvey Dent, Vicki Vale, the majority of The Pact – they would have always turned out rotten to some degree, even without the likes of Batman. Even with your attempts to help them; and I **know** you tried. You can’t seem to turn away from rushing into a burning building on the off-chance someone is still inside. But… That’s also why I’m so proud of you.”_ (Bruce felt his ribs shudder slightly, and he let his breath out slowly through his nostrils rather than risk the rattling breath of a sob.) _“You’re the only Wayne to ever put their life into the city and not ask for anything in return.”_

Bruce didn’t want to hope. He didn’t want to ask if Alfred was leading towards a good end. If he had learned anything at all over the span of his life, it was that Bruce did not get a happy ending. Not a real one.

 _“But you know I can’t come back. I can’t watch you hurt yourself night after night and wait around for the inevitable.”_ A beat. _“But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Bruce. You’ll always be my ward. I hope you know that.”_

“I love you too, Alfred.” Bruce felt like he was drowning, even though his voice was scratchy and rough from strain. (He would not openly sob over the phone. He was not a child.)

 _“Then let’s catch up properly on Saturday, shall we?”_ Alfred said in his dry, gentle tone, _“I have a feeling the Gotham Gazette is only going to tell the last quarter of what sounds like a very long story, and I trust even an insomniac like you will need some sleep if someone as excitable as John was hanging about the manor for a couple of days.”_

Bruce felt his head reel at the brief thought that Alfred somehow _knew,_ but the feeling swept away almost as quickly when he realized his former-butler was merely addressing John’s energetic nature. “Okay,” he said in a short breath, sniffing.

_“Good night, then, Bruce. Sleep well.”_

Bruce let his father figure’s voice wash over him, even though he’d long since memorized the exact pitch and phrasing Alfred used when bidding him goodnight. “’Night, Alfred.”

Alfred hung up, and Bruce was suddenly faced with the looming reality of a very empty house above him and the uncomfortable thought that he could, under no circumstance, admit to his father figure that he was in love with the man who had been responsible for several deaths and the deep scar sitting on Bruce’s left side.

…at least not for a _while._

*~*~*~*~*

As Commissioner Gordon had predicted, Arkham Asylum had been a complete mess on all of Wednesday. Even without Dr. Crane’s bomb threats, there was a constant parade of media outlets trying to get the story on “the insane doctor” and “the Batman/Joker team up”. John Doe’s lawyer was practically fending off the reporters with a stick as he consulted his client about the new charges brought to his name and advised him not to take interviews until everything was sorted. John apparently had enough reason to agree, since there were no new information on what had transpired at the train station, though Bruce felt it was probably reluctantly; John had mentioned in a conversation before that he always wanted to be on T.V. (Bruce remembered that talk very well, since John had mentioned an interview of him so old that Bruce didn’t recall it properly until halfway through the discussion.)

Bruce had played the concerned, angry friend on Wednesday – both of the police officers that had been staking out his house hadn’t even left him a message before leaving, and of course he didn’t get the official word on what happened until he’d called up the GCPD himself as a concerned citizen. Then the Arkham staff told him over the phone to try again Thursday, as they were too busy to allow visitors to _anyone_ amongst the chaos of officers and media outlets interfering with their schedules. He later apologized to those at Wayne Enterprises he inconvenienced by his absence and explained it away by oversleeping. No one batted an eyelash; they were used to that sort of behavior. It was at times like that when Bruce was rather thankful of his old reputation.

On Thursday, he had driven to Arkham early in the morning. The asylum in any hour looked gloomy, but somehow the rolling thunderclouds behind it that morning put Bruce back in mind of sharp spires and gargoyles and ancient, squealing locks long since discarded, and he felt almost like the place had been waiting for him to return. He was promptly told John wasn’t allowed visitors at the moment, despite Bruce’s display of growing concern over what had happened outside the asylum and his genuinely distressed demeanor. The swarm of reporters trying to get in stopped him from causing too much of a fuss; he was spotted anyway, and hustled back into his Gran Turismo without so much as a word. Even without the inevitable call to Alfred the night before, he felt miserable enough not to want to say anything to anyone he didn’t have to.

Finally, on Friday afternoon, he called into question the security measures surrounding the night of John’s escape, asking about how anyone could have supposedly snuck in or out of Arkham when the camera system should have had been still functional during the long upgrade process, even if it didn’t record anything. The receptionist told him she couldn’t possibly know the answer to that, and told the nearest orderly to escort Bruce to John’s room, muttering under her breath about how she wasn’t being paid enough.

Tom Welker, the guard responsible for checking him over, looked completely drained. When asked, he’d said he’d had a long shift, what with the slew of reporters coming in and out to interview staff, and the sudden loss of two staff members making everyone rush around and constantly need to be checked over. Bruce didn’t inquire as to who else was gone; his escort, Mark Sylvester, just scoffed at Tom. “Are you kidding me? We had one guy go all _Hannibal_ on us and your little crush just call up and tell us to take her job and shove it up our asses. That’s not ‘losing staff’, that’s more like taking anvils to the damn chest!”

The journey up to the fifth floor was slow. Mark, thinking Bruce had no clue about what happened the night John escaped, told him in no uncertain terms that the security team in charge of Sunday night’s camera system upgrade had been getting an earful from everyone for allowing a complete blackout period rather than upgrading in slow steps. (Dr. Thomas had apparently kept quiet the fact that he signed off on the idea. Bruce didn’t exactly blame him, since he was already facing rumors that he hadn’t checked Dr. Crane’s background properly and skated over the psychological evaluation. Besides, Bruce was partially to blame for not asking about the blackout window in more depth, so why would he ever bring it up?)

Bruce feigned surprise and intrigue through the whole story, and once they landed on the fifth floor, he asked if anyone had known how John escaped.

“No idea,” Mark shrugged, leading the way to John’s room. “Dr. Leland asked him, and all he said was that the Batman helped him out. No one knows how – the guy’s been missing for six months, and we monitor Doe’s mail. It’s not like he can make any calls, either. Jerry says he _swore_ he saw Batman on one of the towers last night, but _I_ think the Bat has this place bugged. Wouldn’t put it past him, with that Lady Arkham stunt two years ago.”

Bruce felt the corner of his lip twitch. He had visited the asylum the past two nights in his gear, hoping someone would spot him. His idea had worked; and he’d seen John sound asleep both times, which he was sixty-percent sure was a good thing. He’d taken extra measures to modify the phone records the day John had called him, just in case.

They’d stopped at John’s door, and Mark knocked on the hard metal. “Visitor for John Doe,” he called in a bored tone before just opening the door.

John was carefully tearing a section of soft newspaper apart on his bed, not even bothering to look up.

“Hey, John,” Bruce said, doing his best to look concerned. It was difficult; seeing him made him feel lighter, like time was nothing, like there was something decent in the place that felt like permanent dusk had settled over it.

John perked up like a prairie dog, his face glowing like a one-hundred-watt bulb. “Bruce!” He exclaimed, tossing the paper aside. “Come in, come in!”

Mark frowned. “You know the rules, John, he can’t visit you in here – come on, hands behind your back.”

“Oh, come on, Mark, it’s just _Bruce Wayne_. It’s not like _he’s_ going to bust me out,” he teased with a charming smile. “It’d be bad for his delicate image… Besides, I didn’t think I was allowed to see anyone but good ol’ Reginald for a _week_.”

Mark crossed his arms, patches of red blossoming on his cheeks. “Listen, you – you’re still in trouble for escaping, Bat’ or no Bat’. It ain’t punishment if I don’t do procedure.”

“But _Maaark,_ I haven’t seen him in over a _week_ , and I couldn’t tell him about Dr. Crane,” John pouted. “Some of that stuff is _private…_ Besides, the power’s been going in and out all day – he’ll be safer in here with me than outside with everyone else prowling around,” John said in his sincerest voice.

(The power kept going out? It was the first Bruce heard of it…)

Mark narrowed his eyes, and seemed to be chewing on his tongue. “When I get back from my round,” he said slowly, staring at John with hard eyes, “I better see you sitting _right_ where I left you. I don’t want to find a _hair_ out of place on Wayne.” He shot his glare to Bruce, who tried his best to look innocently confused. “That goes for him, too, Moneybags, or I’ll be singing like a fucking canary.” He prodded his finger into his chest. “Not. One. Hair.”

“You don’t need to worry,” Bruce said with an honest, genuine smile. “I’m just here to visit my friend.”

“Yeah, well the _last_ guy I trusted alone with our patients is being charged with criminal abuse,” Mark scoffed, “I’m only taking a chance because you’ve been coming for so long.” He turned to leave, pausing to point between them threateningly. “Not _one_ hair,” he reminded them.

“Not a one!” John said with a thumbs up and the most innocent, bright-eyed expression he could manage.

Then, of course, the orderly shut the door behind them, and Bruce heard the audible click of the lock, and there were barely two footsteps before John practically leaped up to wrap his arms around him.

It was actually a relief. Bruce didn’t care about the camera pointed at them – it wasn’t unusual to hug someone who had effectively been missing for almost three days. He refrained from being too affectionate, despite his instinct wanting to do nothing else but hold him there and kiss anything within reach.

He didn’t like admitting that his house felt empty, nor that he had been far lonelier than he had expected, nor that the feel of John pressed against him in any context made him want to hear him make noise. He didn’t know if he wanted comforting words or laughs or appreciative groans and sighs. Maybe all of it, in a rush of a sentence or two and brush of hands against sensitive areas.

Hell, he’d even take a terrible joke.

But for now, Bruce just enjoyed the warmth that seemed to spread in his veins, and hoped he would be able to remember that feeling for as long as he needed it.

“I missed you,” John mumbled against his shirt.

“I missed you, too,” Bruce whispered back, careful to keep his lip movements to a minimum in case they were being watched.

John snickered a little and pulled away, letting his hands slide over Bruce’s back and under his arms, heating his ribs. Bruce almost shuddered at the intimate touch, knowing full well what those warm hands on his bare back felt like. “They can’t hear us, you know,” he said, a teasing grin growing on his lips. “You can say _some_ things aloud.”

“I can’t take chances.”

“Gosh, you’re paranoid… Fine. Have a seat, then, Brucie – what’s mine is yours!” John beamed, resuming his position on the squealing spring mattress. (Bruce was never going to be used to the sound of it. He was hoping to replace the whole facilities’ – it hadn’t been done in years.) “I’d tell you all about my little, ah, _escapade,_ but I know you’re not here for _that.”_

Bruce dragged the wooden chair out of the corner to sit across from him. He didn’t like the implication that sitting on the bed brought – nor the temptation it sprung to mind.

(God, it’d only been two days and Bruce was already thinking about how loud that mattress could be under the right conditions. Maybe it was his brain’s desperate way to try and cope with reality.)

“What happened when you got back?” Bruce asked, thinking of the stolen Honda and the security guard’s I.D. he’d left behind for someone else to find.

“Well, Jerry and Honey don’t know I borrowed their stuff, so they still feel secure around me,” John said with a knowing smile, counting off on his fingers, “and one of the orderlies escorting me to Dr. Leland’s office asked me about the graveyard – he wanted to know what the Court thing was in the mausoleum – but that’s about it. I managed to convince them to let me have the newspapers from the staff room.”

Bruce cast a look at the section of newspaper John had been trying to tear, spying an old picture of himself. _“Batman Returns?_ Hmm, not the most _imaginative_ title…”

“At least the news finally got _interesting_ again,” John said fondly, pulling several other pieces from under the pillow, “Here, have a look! I’d be crazy not to keep them! Or, uh, _crazier…”_

Bruce scanned the folded articles. John had been careful to make them as minimally torn as possible:

> _Train Bombing Derailed by Batman!_
> 
> _Batman Returns – Battles Psycho-Terrorist at Sky Rail_
> 
> _Diner Terrorist Brought Down by Dark Knight_
> 
> _Mad Doctor Thwarted by Batman… & Co’?! _
> 
> _Who is “Oracle”? – the Anonymous Third Party of the Terrorist’s Take-Down_
> 
> _Joker Returned to Arkham by Batman_
> 
> _Crane Captured – GCPD Thanks Batman and Associates_
> 
> _“Doctor of Fear” Deemed Insane Post-Batman Battle_
> 
> _Batman and Joker – the Team-Up that Saved Gotham?!_

“You’re keeping _all_ of these?” Bruce asked, smirking playfully. He wasn’t surprised the ‘Batman and Joker’ article had been the most carefully done out of the pile, being the entire front page of a tabloid. He _was_ surprised at the picture on the front – someone had managed to get a photo of the two of them with the ambulance when they had been talking to Gordon, conveniently cropping out the Commissioner and placing text blocks over where he would have been. It was quite a good picture of John; Bruce made a mental note to find the picture online to keep, and another note to himself about looking into who had the telescopic camera lens. There was no way the police would have let a reporter beyond the tape on a crime scene like _that,_ and even a paper like _Gotham Moonrise_ wasn’t about to get that close to Batman. He would have been impressed if he hadn’t been deeply concerned about what else they might have seen.

(He reminded himself that the Batmobile’s windows were tinted for the very purpose of keeping out prying eyes and cameras. There was no way anyone could have known what had happened in there.)

Thankfully the only other ‘new’ pictures were all of a partially obscured Oracle and Joker, sitting and standing around the open end of the ambulance, talking to Commissioner Gordon and who Bruce guessed to be Detective Montoya. Bruce had seen these same sort of shots several times already for the past few days, along with John’s Arkham photo, the old picture of Joker with a Jokerrang, and what was now an infamous shot of a very distressed looking Jonathan Crane being carried away into an ambulance, his ‘Scarecrow’ hood just snatched off by an officer.

“What are the talking heads saying about us, anyway?” John asked, propping his elbows on his spread knees. “I don’t have television privileges yet.”

Bruce raised a brow at that, but answered anyway. “The usual, mostly. No one knows where you went for three days, everyone’s surprised to see Batman again, Dr. Crane’s gang are trying to make plea deals…”

“Are they calling Crane crazy yet?” John asked, the light in his acidic eyes probing and dangerous.

“Yes,” Bruce answered with a heavy sigh. “It seems his overdose of Fear Toxin has caused some permanent damage; the doctors at Gotham Central are saying he hasn’t stopped hallucinating, even with antipsychotics on top of the antitoxin. So until the evidence that he planned the attack on the diner and sky rail are made public, everyone’s saying he’s a psychopath.”

John was smiling, and Bruce tried not to find himself drawn to it. “Permanent damage, huh?” He perched his chin in his palms, eyes glinting like precious polished stones. “Can you say that again, but in a lower voice? I want to experience this wonderful _schadenfreude_ with your dulcet tones.”

“No.”

“Can you say _no_ lower, then? I _love_ that intimidating voice you do,” he purred, not losing the spark in his gaze as he shifted to resting his head in only one hand.

“John, don’t start.”

“Why? Afraid you can’t stop if we do?” His free hand drummed his knee, one finger after another, all bony whites that Bruce knew the feel of. (It was not the place or time to think about that. Bruce pushed the thought aside.) “You shouldn’t feel guilty, Bruce. It’s not _evil_ to enjoy a monster getting what he deserved. Besides, he did it to himself! His hubris is nothing to feel bad about!”

Bruce swallowed. He couldn’t allow that feeling.

“Then again, you wouldn’t be _you_ if you didn’t brood over it a _little,”_ John added.

The lights flickered. Bruce cast a look up at the ceiling light. It hadn’t blown, and it wasn’t making any odd, concerning noises.

“They’ve been going in and out all day,” John said, not bothering to look up. “I think they plan them. They’ll flicker like that every fifteen seconds, and then after four flickers, the power will go out for seven minutes.” The light flickered again. “I think they’re trying to blame the electrical system for the camera debacle.”

“They’d have a hard time doing that. I looked at the inspection reports myself.”

John tittered. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” he muttered, “We can play the hardcore version of ‘seven minutes in heaven.’”

“John,” Bruce grunted, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “no. Absolutely not.”

John cackled to himself, sounding far more genuinely amused than anything. “I was _kidding,_ Bruce! Gosh, give a guy some _credit_ – I know _you’re_ not into public exposure!”

Bruce felt his face heat uncomfortably, and then the lights flickered twice and went off. He shot a look at the camera posed above the door – the power was definitely out.

“Oh, while I have the chance…” As quick as a whip, John sprung off the bed and rummaged around in the middle drawer of his dresser. Bruce watched unabashedly, even as his conscience reminded him that this was not the time or place to be eying him up.

And just like that, John whirled around with his arm outstretched, a postcard in his hand. “I found this by the door Thursday morning!” Bruce took the card; it was a vintage design of a black cat with a suitcase and the phrase ‘I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way’. “I think it’d be safer if you kept it, though,” John explained, resuming his seat but with his legs bouncing slightly over the edge of the bed. “I only have so many hiding places in here.”

Bruce flipped it over and read:

> _John -_
> 
> _Thanks for the wake-up call. I don’t think anyone else will benefit from having a gun pointed at their face in the same way I have._
> 
> _Please tell Bruce I’m sorry, and that I appreciated his attempt to help._
> 
> _J.L._
> 
> _P.S. I’ll drop you a line when you get out. Hopefully by then I can net you free tickets to whatever I’m doing. Just don’t expect Shakespeare._

The address section had John’s name and room number above a jack-o-lantern drawn in pen.

“I heard one of the doctors saying she’d called on Thursday to resign,” John said. “Apparently she didn’t even show up on Wednesday! I bet she snuck in late.”

Bruce tucked the card into his pocket, knowing he was going to put it right above the jack-o-lantern mask in the new case he’d brought down to the cave; it was next to Crane’s, where the little plastic scarecrow from his office sat below an empty spot waiting for his burlap mask. “Still have your ear to the ground, huh?” Bruce smiled.

“You need every advantage you can get in this place,” John answered with a shrug and shrunken smile. “I had to tell Dr. Leland your other half broke me out, and now all the security guards think you’re some kind of ninja.”

“I did take some pointers from them,” Bruce smirked.

John cast a look down at the bandage on the back of Bruce’s hand. “Not enough, apparently. You don’t hear of many ninjas who cut themselves.”

“You left one of your throwing cards in the car. It was the Two of Hearts, ironically enough,” Bruce explained, wondering if the twisted metaphor of being cut by that card’s literal razor edge was worth considering.

John reached out to caress the back of his hand, all playful and affectionate. “Sorry, Brucie. How _can_ I make it up to you?”

Bruce pushed aside the desire to kiss him, or hold him, or do anything at all that would comfort them both in their old, dark homes. 

Instead, he asked what had been laying at the back of his mind for two days. “Have you heard anything about Crane coming here?”

“I _have,_ as a matter of fact,” John said with a grin that widened and sharpened by the moment. “It’s just a rumor, but they say he’ll be isolated in Art’s room until he gets moved to a _‘safer’_ institution. Now isn’t _that_ just a co-inky-dink? Our dastardly doctor being locked up with his test subjects, in the room of a man he’d _murdered…?”_

Bruce was terribly reminded of when he had stayed at Arkham. He could see strings of a path laid out already, if that rumor was true, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Crane was found dead within a day of his admittance. He trusted John – he loved him – but John was clever enough not to get himself caught with the knife in his hand. Like the incident with Zsasz, he’d get someone else to make the mess, and knowing the extent to what Jonathan Crane had done to his patients, Bruce almost wouldn’t blame him for watching from the sidelines.

“Don’t look so _paranoid,_ Bruce,” John said with a lesser grin, taking Bruce’s hand in both of his, “It’s just a _rumor._ We’re _safe_ in here, all nice and bolted in. Besides, Art’s old room has been occupied for two weeks. And even if Crane _was_ here, didn’t I tell you before that I _respect_ you?” His fingers smoothed over skin, the light in his eyes softening. “That I _love_ you?”

Bruce only stared back at the little imperfections in the slivers of John’s acid greens, anger and familiarity and warmth all mingling together in his stomach. He’d _tricked_ him, testing to see if he could put Bruce on edge and make him wonder at what-ifs, reminding him just what John was capable of. ‘Joker’ seemed so appropriate a name for him just then that Bruce felt it on his tongue.

“We’re two threads in the same stitch, Bruce,” John muttered adoringly, leaning in close, “I’m not about to break that when I still want to see what shape it makes.”

It was like a chemical reaction, with the bubbling heat in him combusting, and Bruce gave in and kissed him, the nerves in his mouth lighting up on contact. He reminded himself that they had mere _moments_ before the power returned and that this might be the last time he got to touch John for months.

It was eerily quiet in Arkham, and Bruce felt like he could hear every minute noise outside in-between memorizing the sound of John’s breaths and the way their lips sounded as they moved together. Footsteps, murmurs, a cart wheeling down the hall – all there, all ordinary background noise that drove home the reality of where they were.

He reminded himself that they were _not_ back at square one, that the cycle of ins and outs of the asylum was not shaped like Ouroboros, that they had started a new line for their paths to go off to, and that they were not alone and soon they never _would_ be.

And just as quickly as it had begun, it ended, just like the time they had together always seemed to. Bruce pulled away, his internal timer almost at zero, and John sat back with the same glassy-eyed look from Bruce’s bedroom, when he told Bruce he loved him.

“Get out soon,” Bruce muttered to him, every part of his body aching to just sign the papers to release him into his custody. _“Please,_ get out soon.”

John just laughed like it was a joke. “What do you think I’ve been _trying_ to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first multi-chapter story I’ve ever finished in my life. I feel so _satisfied_ and yet…a little empty, too. I’ve spent so much time working on this story – (I literally marathoned all of Gotham while writing the first six chapters, starting in March of this year) – that there’s a now a “well what do I do now” lingering around, even with other projects staring at me in the face. I know that feeling will go. Inspiration has thankfully struck me for those other projects, and new ideas will no doubt shake my shoulder and go “dude have you seen this shit your imagining, you gotta make this.” I already have some I know you guys will like, even though the question of when I’ll write them, let alone post them, is one I can’t answer.
> 
> To all those thinking that they’ll never finish their own work: **Yes you can.** Ask yourself what’s stopping you from writing that section that you struggle with, and change it. Don’t erase a scene if you’re unhappy with it; start fresh and keep it separated from its predecessor until you work out the kinks. Remind yourself that your audience, be they loud or quiet, are waiting for you. And most importantly, let your spite fuel you in small doses and your love and intrigue fuel you in large ones.
> 
> And so, I leave this story here, with a full heart and a more optimistic outlook on the future. Come what may of TellTale – Batman Season 3 or no – we’ll always have the time we spent together here, and I wouldn’t trade that for all the “Kiss John” opportunities in the world.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Normal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17651321) by [writingisbliss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingisbliss/pseuds/writingisbliss)




End file.
